The European media community’s inaugural pre-holiday Meet & Greet event, held on December 17, 2020 on the Deal Room Events platform was a milestone for how networking events in 2021 should look: well-moderated discussion and connections between colleagues – many of whom have never met before – all in a robust virtual platform.

The event, produced by Janet Greco, leveraged Deal Room’s renowned networking features for connecting with individuals who fill out profiles in advance. With a proscribed time limit of 20 minutes per meeting – now conducted by video chat – the Deal Room platform has been successfully implemented by various event producers, most notably Arctic15, the leading Nordic venture investment event. Media Meet & Greet brought together more than 70 individuals – broadcasters, technology vendors, OTT producers, and consultants – who conducted meetings, and attended talks on the ‘Future of Work’ by John Howkins, ‘Navigating Innovation in Lockdown,’ with Vanessa Vigar, and ‘The Rise of Hyperlocal,’ with Andrew Stirling.

Chris Pfaff moderated The Pub, a convivial session that discussed ‘Streaming or Screaming.’ The event was capped with a live appearance from Los Angeles by noted rock composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Carl Restivo (Grammy nominated songwriter for ‘Go All The Way’ from the ‘Twilight’ soundtrack, musical director for Tom Morello, Perry Farrell), who performed three solo guitar numbers that he felt were appropriate: Chuck Berry’s ‘Roll Over Beethoven,’ as the event was on the composer’s 250th birthday; ‘Have a Cigar’ by Pink Floyd, as a statement on the music industry, and ‘So Lonely’ by the Police (as we have all been locked down for nearly a year). Over the span of just a few hours, the event was a hopeful, and enlightening, way to end the year and look forward to further such gatherings that smash time and distance and bring connection to an industry that has undergone seismic shifts in an unprecedented year.

You can check out the next events at: www.broadcastprojects.com/media-meet-greet. You can register for the ‘Barcelona Sunrise’ event – from February 15-25 – at: https://ti.to/media-meet-greet/media-meet-greet-barcelona-sunrise-2021

Executive producer of ‘Media Meet & Greet,’ Janet Greco, welcomes the audience

Chris Pfaff (upper left) moderates the ‘Streaming or Screaming?’ discussion in The Pub, one of the virtual discussion rooms in the Media Meet & Greet session for the European media industry on December 17, 2020. Joining the session were Vanessa Vigar (upper row, 2nd from left); Andrew Stirling (upper row, 2nd from left); Lee Morin (upper row, far right); Trygve Refvem (middle row, far left); Janet Greco (middle row, 2nd from left); Tracy Swedlow (middle row, 2nd from right); Gilberto Flores (middle row, far right); David Short (bottom row, far left); Benjamin Schwarz (bottom row, 2nd from left); Laura Riggs (bottom row, 2nd from right), Uwe Kühhirt, from Fraunhofer (bottom row, far right)

Carl Restivo (bottom) sings live from LA to end the Media Meet & Greet event; Janet Greco (upper left) and Chris Pfaff (upper right) rock out

Heikki Rotko, founder and chairman of Media Honeypot (right), welcomes the crowd at Media Honeypot in Helsinki, as Janina Salo-Glasemann (center), CEO of Media Honeypot, and Ralph Simon (left), CEO of Mobilium Global, look on

The 3^rd annual Media Honeypot Helsinki, the gathering of the European media start-up tribes, was another remarkable showing of the strength of media innovation in Europe. This year’s event, held on February 15th at the Crowne Plaza Helsinki, did much more than match the leading media companies in Europe with the leading media start-ups – it reinforced what many of us in the media and telecom industry have known for years: that Europe’s broadcasters are the most progressive in the world, and have been natural incubators for some of the most creative applications of media tech. With last year’s opening of Media City Bergen in Norway, there is much more activity on generating clearly defined start-ups that can address tomorrow’s needs for media companies.

Tomas Franzén, CEO of Bonnier, presents his keynote at Media Honeypot 2018

The Media Honeypot program – expertly curated by Janina Salo-Glasemann and her team – was emceed by the estimable Ralph Simon, whose bon mots in Finnish and Swedish brought more than a few chuckles from the crowd. Tomas Franzén, CEO of Bonnier, discussed how the company has managed to move into the digital space, while also nurturing a venture arm. He reminded the audience that, at its core, Bonnier’s chief job is to promote and protect democracy; a welcome message during these times. Moritz Holzgraefe, with Axel Springer, was one of several major publishers on the lookout for new startups; his company has certainly led the way in transforming a proud old publisher into a digital powerhouse. Laura Avonius, co-founder of Data Refinery, showed how her unit at Aller Media turned the company around by using its own data and spun it off as Data Refinery.

Laura Avonius (left), co-founder and CEO of Data Refinery, presents Data Refinery’s case for publishers

Anthony Herman, now heading up Amazon Web Services in the Nordics, discussed his background as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and how that informs his current role. Trygve Refvem, head of MTG Ignite, discussed what a broadcast group looks for in start-up development.

Valerie Vlasenko, from Arctic Startup, introduces the pitching finalists at Media Honeypot

Yet, for all of the prescient case studies and presentations and discussions regarding the next step for European media companies and start-ups, the most impressive aspect of Media Honeypot was the line-up of companies participating in the event. Frankly, one would have been hard put to identify an event that could present the likes of what we saw at the Crowne Plaza Helsinki last Thursday. From Stream Time, developer of a true cross-service EPG to Bibblio, provider of a content relevance and recommendation platform to Adlaunch, creator of an AI-based ad creation platform, there was a surfeit of talent and vision to be matched with the right media company.

And, yes, the pitching competition presented five finalists – Cloudbounce, Utelly, Kieku, Bibblio and Valossa – that virtually advertised the event for anyone paying attention: the leading AI media start-ups are in Europe. Valossa convincingly won the pitching competition, with founder/CEO Mika Rautiainen giving a clear reason for why Valossa delivers value for media companies.

The winner of the Media Honeypot 2018 Pitching Competition was Valossa. Here are, from Valossa: Sami Niski (left), VP of Sales; Mika Rautiainen, founder/CEO (center), and Tommi Karjalainen (right), business development director

Mika Rautiainen, me, and Janina Salo-Glasemann, CEO of Media Honeypot

Heikki Rotko, founder of Media Honeypot, has built something that should only expand in the coming years, as more European broadcasters and publishers seek new revenue streams.

Heikki Rotko (left), with Trygve Refvem, head of MTG Ignite, at Media Honeypot 2018