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Ouest Médialab: a cluster and independent media lab that supports the regional digital transition

With a geographical focus on West France, Ouest Médialab brings together a variety of actors around digital innovation projects in the regions Pays de la Loire and Bretagne.

by WAN-IFRA Staff executivenews@wan-ifra.org | August 14, 2018

This article was originally published on Méta-Media, as part of an editorial partnership between Méta-Media and WAN-IFRA. The interview was conducted by François Fluhr, France Télévisions, Prospective and Media Lab © [2018] All rights reserved.

After it was created in 2012, the lab needed some time to mature, assemble a sufficient number of people, and put in place a road map. It started its activites in 2013, around four strategic axes that remain the pillars of the project today:

  • The ambition to develop the skills of the teams involved and to create synergies between different professions. This is a specific challenge in the media industry, where it has become essential to experiment with developers and designers for example.
  • Research into new business models and sharing best practices. The goal is to support companies in their development or creation. This has also led Ouest Médialab to launch its incubator NMcube this year.
  • Communication that places the spotlight on noteworthy innovation, especially on a local level – whether it’s media, schools, start-ups or even communities.
  • Open innovation in the form of short and midterm projects aimed at bringing actors closer together and creating collaborations around digital topics. This allows the media lab to highlight its unique characteristic as an open lab, which is not connected to any one media group in particular.

In addition to a small team of four employees, Ouest Médialab benefits from the voluntary support of its 130 members:

“The time our members dedicate to the activities we organise represents the equivalent of at least two full-timers,” says Ouest Médialab Director Julien Kostrèche. “The cluster brings together most of the local media in the region – including Ouest-France, Le Télégramme, France 3, France Bleu, local television stations, community radio – but also the communities, content agencies, startups, journalism schools, communication programs, design and computer science schools.”

Read the full article on media-innovation.news.

This is one of the cases collected as part of the ongoing Media Innovation Mapping project, a collaboration between WAN-IFRA’s Global Alliance for Media Innovation and the Media Innovation Studio at UCLan

Read about the 40+ Media Labs we talked to so far or contact us to share your story.

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