Join the Revolution with the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme
Watch the Kickstart Livestream View the Quickfire Pitches View the Agenda
The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme’s Kickstart Day 2026 took place on Wednesday, 25th of February at the BBC Broadcasting House, London.
Aside from industry-leading speaker & panel sessions on compelling challenges and opportunities for the sector, the highlight was a series of Quickfire Pitches by the 12 shortlisted Accelerator Project Challenges.
The event also included networking drinks and the 2025 Accelerator Project of the Year Award, awarded to the 'AI Agent Assistants for Live Production' Team.
Kickstart Day Livestream
For the first time ever, the afternoon project pitch sessions at Kickstart Day were livestreamed!
The IBC Accelerators Kickstart Day Live is supported by our incredible partners at Shure.
IBC Accelerators Kickstart Day Livestream welcomed participants from around the world.
If you missed the Livestream, you can still watch the afternoon programme on demand and register your interest to participate in the 2026 projects.
Sponsored by: 
2026 Quickfire Pitches
This year's Kickstart Day included 12 Pitches:
- Network Control: Your Connection, Your Choice (Proposed by Champions: GSMA Fusion, BBC, University of Strathclyde, with supporting Participants: Neutral Wireless)
- Ecoflow III: Applied Sustainable Video Delivery (Proposed by Champions: ITV, IET, and supporting Participants: Accedo, Humans Not Robots)
- FRAME: Federated Retrieval and Agentic Media Environment (Proposed by Champions: RAI, EBU, with Co-Champions: MovieLabs, ITV, ETC/Southern California University, XRBB and supporting Participants: AMD/HP)
- Q-Stream: Quantum Secure, Network-Adaptive, Verifiable, Live Media Infrastructure (Proposed by Champions: IET, BFBS and supporting Participants: Tesla Technologies)
- VooPla: The Decision Twin - Decision-Ready Sustainable Digital Twins for Broadcast & Virtual Production Studios (Proposed by Champions: Digital Catapult and supporting Participants: Solve Evolve)
- AI for Live Media Platform for Sports & Beyond- powered by Agentic AI for Adaptive Dynamic Content, Personalization, Automation & Monetization (Proposed by Champions: Astro Malaysia, MBC (Middle East Broadcasting Company) and supporting Participants: TCS (Tata Consultancy Services)
- Crystal Clear: Boosting Speech Intelligibility in Media (Proposed by Champions: Channel 4, BBC)
- Software Defined Workflows for Interoperable Movie and TV Production (Proposed by Champions: Movielabs and supporting Participants: Holli.st, FX-DMZ and Entertainment Technologists)
- Delta Protocol: Live Media Reinvented (Proposed by Champions: DAZN)
- IFeL: Immersive Festival Live - Remote Presence at Scale (Proposed by Champions: SMPTE, MIT Reality Hack, with Co-Champions: Kings College London, University of Galway and supporting Participants: Shure, DeoVR, Motion Impossible)
- From Broadcast to "Me-Cast": Personalised Broadcasting for the Next Generation of Media Consumption (Proposed by Champions: Astro Malaysia and supporting Participants: TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), Cambi.ai)
- Incubator Story Intelligence: The Agentic Production Ecosystem (Proposed by Champions: Associated Press, NBCU, ITN, BBC, with Co-Champions: Channel 4, Al Jazeera, Washington Post and supporting Participants Shure, EVS, CUEZ, Moments Lab)
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2026 Kickstart Award
Accelerator Project of the Year Award Winner:
The 2025 Project of the Year Award was presented to the 'AI Agent Assistants for Live Production' Team.
With Champions ITN, BBC, Channel 4 and Participants CUEZ, Amira Labs, Highfield-AI, Monks, CuePilot, Shure, EVS, Moments Lab, Google Cloud, the project set new standards for AI-driven live production to ensure that next-generation automation remains adaptive, reliable, and deeply embedded in real-world broadcast operations.
Additional Information
Contact Us
Please contact marketing@ibc.org if you would like to get involved in the 2026 Accelerator Innovation programme.