The Seven Network has revealed the results of the second round of its innovation initiative – Ignite – which saw seven employee-led generative AI concepts selected for prototype development.
Taking the top honours was Preview Town, a development concept that delivers a series of short trailer previews when a user selects a piece of content. Led by Liz De Nobrega, the winning team included Luke Jensen, Andrew Green, David Van Oosterom, Rakib Dewan, Aaron Bush, Stefan Creovina, Zinnia Wang, Safeera Kuttiyoth and Marcus Torre.
The three-week event focused on generative artificial intelligence in sport across the 7plus platform, using Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) to create the best user and client experience.
The judging panel included Nina Walsh, head of media & entertainment business development, Asia Pacific, Japan & Americas, AWS; Lucinda Gemmell, Seven’s chief people and culture officer, 7Sport digital executive producer Tara Carlon; and Rachel Page, Seven’s network digital sales director.
Seven’s director of product solutions, Will Everitt said that Ignite is a testament to the network’s commitment to developing their technology talent.
“By bringing together engineers with staff from diverse functions and backgrounds, Ignite encourages collaboration across traditionally siloed parts of the business. Engineers work directly with sports journalists, commercial teams and people from other departments to gain insights into challenges from different perspectives,” he said.
“The Ignite program highlights Seven’s focus on fostering innovation across its business. By the end of each Ignite event, participants have a deeper knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of emerging technologies. They learn how to scope projects, realistically based on available resources and timeframes. This increased technical literacy among non-engineers fosters a shared language and more productive partnerships across Seven.”
AWS’ Nina Walsh expressed that the development of talent, combined with the collaborative culture produced impressive results.
“It was inspiring to see how the creative groups used AWS services, bringing their concepts to life by leveraging our latest AI and ML technologies, including Amazon Bedrock. The calibre of concepts presented for judging was truly bar-raising,” she said.