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Open call

Content personalisation: designing the future of news experiences

Open date: Friday 30 November 2018   Close date: Thursday 10 January 2019

Digital Catapult has partnered with leading global news organisations to develop personalisation tools for better news experiences.

We are looking for media organisations, innovative developers, startups, scaleups and researchers who can collaborate to develop powerful and meaningful personalisation tools. These tools should provide cutting-edge user experiences that can push the right content, in the right format, at the right time.

This activity will explore the latest developments in news content personalisation, focusing on the Content Personalisation Network (CPN) programme funded by the European Commission. The CPN platform is being developed by leading global media organisations including VRT, Deutsche Welle and Dias.

Why you should get involved

  • Participants will have the opportunity to work with global leaders and become a key partner in the development of the CPN personalisation tool
  • Technology providers will be able to develop solutions commercially, both as part of the CPN platform and more widely
  • Seven of the pilots developed during the sprint will be selected to showcase at the annual World News Media Congress organised by WAN-IFRA. This international event attracts circa 800 European and global media experts. This includes one free pass to the three day conference in Glasgow (value: €2000)
  • The winners will feature in a focused article in WAN-IFRA’s Global Alliance for Media Innovation (GAMI) newsletter: A newsletter to over 3,000 media professionals including CEO’s, Managing Directors, Managing Editors, Innovation Managers, R+D managers, Social Media managers, CTOs etc.

Who should apply

We are looking for established small businesses, startups, scaleups and researchers with expertise in:

  • Machine learning (ML)
  • Recommender systems
  • Content personalisation
  • Data science
  • User experience
  • Text mining/natural language processing (NLP)
  • Speech-to-text and/or text-to-speech

Applications of these technologies and solutions could include:

  • Advanced analytics tools for sentiment analysis and collective intelligence
  • Tools for identifying contextual information relating to news stories for news and other sources (e.g. social or advertising)
  • Summarisation tools for text and other information
  • News bots, smart speakers and digital assistant services
  • Solving the filter bubble/echochamber problem and cold start problem for new users on personalisation systems
  • Machine translation for better management of content in multiple languages

During the collaboration phase innovators can either develop a new product or service or build on an existing service.

Additional detail

CPN is supported by a strong consortium including news organisations Deutsche Welle (DW), VRT and DIAS each leading news organisations in their respective countries (Germany, Belgium and Cyprus). As a result of this collaboration we will be able to share a data set of content to allow solutions to be tested and demonstrated.

Next steps

If you’re interested in taking part, please submit your application below. Successful applicants will be contacted within two weeks of the closing date. From this stage participants will then:

  • Form collaborations with media organisations during the February event. The event will take place on 13-14 February 2019 at Digital Catapult in London
  • In the following months, teams will be developing chosen pilots, with regular feedback from the media and technical professionals
  • In 2019, the participants will regroup for a final showcase at the World News Media Congress in Glasgow. The event will take place on 1-3 June 2019 in Glasgow