A dozen finalists have been chosen in the National Association of Broadcasters PILOT (https://nabpilot.org/ tech initiative's annual Innovation Challenge.
The challenge was to come up with "an unconventional way broadcasters and other local media could serve communities?" Among those unconventional proposals are a Google question generator that tracks seraches by "relevant news regions" so reporters can track where there stories are being accessed, and a "tiny desk reporter" avatar.
The 12 were winnowed from 150 finalists, with winners identified Nov. 13 at an NAB Futures forum in Palo Alto.
The Knight Foundation teamed with PILOT to boost the numer of winners, with first place getting $30,000, second place $25,000 and third place $20,000, with three other winners getting $20,000 to develop a prototype. The winners will be showcased at the NAB Show.
The finalists are:
•Drone the News (DTN), Central Michigan University
•End-to-End Audio Solution for VR Live Streaming, G’Audio Lab
•Engagement VR: Transparent Community Interaction, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University
•Google Question Generator, Cornell University IRL School
•Immersive Storytelling & an Ethic of Care, University of Colorado Boulder
•LiveWorks, VRVideo
•nēdl (needle"), Ayinde Alakoye
•NewsBIN VLOG, University of Maryland
•Next Gen TV Saving Lives One Alert at a Time, UNC-TV
•Pivotal News, Pivotal
•RESILIENCE- Preparing for Climate Change, Michael Ricciardi
•Tiny (AR) Desk Reporter, MIEL / Cronkite School of Journalism
For more on the finalists, click here.
NAB's PILOT partners include Nielsen, IBM and Google.
