New Media Academy Launches
StumbleUponWith the rise in importance of social media and Web 2.0 in the media, a national network of elite ‘finishing schools’ launches in order to groom the next generation of creative talent in broadcast and interactive media.
The Skillset Media Academy Network has been launched looking to develop a new wave of talent that will be well equipped to work with the likes of Facebook, YouTube and other new media technologies.
According to Skillset, the UK Sector Skills Council for the Audio and Visual Industries, the network is the first attempt anywhere in the world to integrate collaborative media institutions and academia directly into a national education infrastructure and promises a more hands on approach with 60 per cent of the course practical based.
The network links together 17 different institutions made of 43 colleges and universities across the country. Many of these are already themselves centres of excellence in television production and interactive media.
Among those that are supporting the initiative are ITV, BBC, Nokia, Bafta, Sony and Endemol, some of which will take on students on a work placement scheme.
Greg Dyke, former Director General of the BBC and Skillset patron and chair of the Media Academy approvals panel believes that the network could help create the ‘next Facebook’.
"We are talking about the next wave of talent, the people who are going to come up with the next ‘Facebook’ or ‘You Tube’ and brilliant interactive entertainment concepts. It makes absolute sense for media companies to have partnerships and collaborations with the best academics and the best talent in a network that has benchmarked standards of excellence," said Dyke.
According to Sir Christopher Frayling, Chairman of the Arts Council of England this new initiative will help the UK become a leader in the Web 2.0 world.
"The creation of the Skillset Media Academy Network is a big step forward for Higher Education in the UK. With the new technologies in media and communications, we now find ourselves in a world that doesn’t have borders and boundaries, a place of online social networks where people ‘put their lives online’ and increasingly use interactive media applications to navigate their way through everyday living."
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