MINDS International is organizing another matchmaking event during the 29th MINDS Conference in Helsinki. For the third time we offer startups, scale-ups and grownups the unique opportunity to pitch before the 24 news agencies that participate in the conference. After the pitches, there will be individual talks between startups/scale-ups/grownups and interested news agencies. The selection of tech companies will take place in the form of a challenge.

The event will take place at the Scandic Park Hotel in Helsinki on April 24, 2020.

 

Tech companies are invited to come up with solutions for specific problems that news agencies around the world are facing. We will pick the 10 best solutions and invite those companies to come to Helsinki.

 

The ‘MINDS International News Agency Challenge’ is all about automation of workflows and content production. News agencies are looking for ways to streamline their processes and tools to optimize the use of scarce resources such as journalists. This should lead to improvement of the quality of their services, better journalism and new sources of revenue.

 

The news agencies are looking for:

 

• Technology to automate parts of the copy editing process e.g. automated grammar and style issue resolution
• Automated tagging and adding of metadata
• Automated or semi-automated content production, for instance the production of (hyper)local news on the basis of data
• Automated image recognition, for instance celebrity recognition
• Automated video editing and subtitling
• Technology to automate cross platform content production and distribution, e.g. automated production of formats for social media
• Automated audio applications, e.g. text-to-speech, chatbots, extraction of voice overs from videos, in-car audio news services etc.
• Technology to detect fake news
• Automation of real time planning information, for instance about events

 

The news agencies seek mature solutions from companies with proven technology and an existing client base. In general, it is important to bear in mind that solutions need to be B2B since the news agencies never directly deal with consumers. Also, language related applications need to support multi-lingual solutions as the MINDS network includes 17 languages.

 

Participating in the challenge is free. If you are selected to present your solution at the MINDS Conference, there will be a fee involved. At the conference the news agencies will select one company as winner. This winner will get access to the next MINDS Conference in Brussels in the fall of 2020 (something you would normally pay € 5.000 for). Of course, all 10 finalists in Helsinki will have an equal chance to do business with interested news agencies.

 

The deadline for applications is March 1, 2020.