With sustainability as a goal for every industry, we’ve chosen it as the first of the three dimensions we’ll be highlighting at this year’s MediaTech Hub Conference: “Sustainability, Cloud and the New Virtual”. 

It’s now a full-on movement: the media-tech-driven industries are actively working on developing innovative technologies that conserve resources while still providing us with entertainment, business services and opportunities and so much more besides. And for the first time, we’re showcasing their efforts to put their money where their mouth is. 

In the film industry, they’re working hard to decarbonize film production and video streaming – across the industry’s entire value chain.

So we’re very happy to announce two of our first speakers who are making such a contribution to the discourse on green film production and clean IT initiatives: Mercedes Eisert is CIO of Bavaria Film and since 2019 has been leading their ongoing digitalization process. According to Mercedes, the share of sustainable IT in media production will double within just a few years. “Sustainability is becoming the key indicator of digital success,” she tells us, pointing out that it approaches MediaTech from both sides, “[…] on the one hand through green production, and on the other hand from the technology side.” Mercedes will explain how one of Germany’s oldest film production companies is pushing fearlessly for carbon footprint reduction in their current and upcoming productions.

And we’re also proud to welcome Mei Lin Fung, co-founder of the People-Centered Internet and passionate campaigner for clean IT, who will be speaking at #mthcon on technical possibilities of reducing the CO2 impact of streaming. Mei Lin contributes to the German government’s Think7 policy development process on a people-centered digital future, and spoke at the first clean-IT Conference held in March this year by the Hasso Plattner Institute, where she has also been awarded a Fellowship. 

Babelsberg Studios was founded over 100 years ago and has been a favourite film production location for such illustrious filmmakers as Wes Anderson, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino, and, most recently, the acclaimed Lana Wachowski. Today, Babelsberg is a leader in film-making technology.

And, with the claim of the MediaTech Hub Conference “It’s All MediaTech Now!”, we believe there’s no better venue for our conference! From the high-tech Volucap VFX facility, developed and used for the Matrix Resurrections production, to the range of virtual production studios and excellent post-production facilities (and even its own film orchestra!), this is not your average event location. Our speakers and participants will get the chance to see some of the facilities at Babelsberg when they travel to Potsdam in September – yet another reason to attend this year’s MediaTech Hub Conference!