Academic brings spotlight onto media technology industry

The event, held at BT Sport's studios in London, was attended by more than 200 people, and Polly shared the stage with representatives from engineering and education including Roisin McKeniry, Head of Production Technology, Timeline TV; Sandy Isnard, Solutions Architect, Telstra Broadcast Services; and Carys Hughes, Design Engineer, Emerging Technologies, Sky.

During the debate speakers discussed, somewhat heatedly at times, what needs to be done to bring more women, in particular, into both engineering careers within sports broadcasting and to develop the educational tracts to get them there.

Polly said of the event: “It was great to have the opportunity to discuss some of the issues we are facing in conjunction with industry, who are in desperate need of more technical people coming into the industry.

We discussed how the key to this was more awareness about what goes on behind the cameras and in the outside broadcast trucks - an idea which is being supported by the Rise Up project, where industry are going into schools to promote 'behind the scenes'. I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to discuss this in depth with fellow educators and some of the big players in our industry.”

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