Arts Council England and BBC Academy launch programme to build digital capacity for the arts

I attended the launch of this new programme yesterday, held at King’s Place in London.  The two organisations are looking to bring together the BBC Academy’s media and digital experience with the Arts Council’s extensive knowledge of the arts sector, starting with the organisations funded by ACE. The idea is to deliver a series of 5 seminars and 12 masterclasses over the next 18 months, designed to support the development of the arts sector’s media production skills. There were some very interesting speakers on the panel, most notable Tom Uglow who runs Google and YouTube’s Creative Lab team. He encouraged arts organisations to work more closely with technicians to start unlocking the potential around the use of digital and technology driven platforms – which is exactly the ethos that underpins the some of the work happening in and around Drake Music. During the Q & A the issue of using technology to provide better equality for disabled people in both accessing and participating in the arts was raised and again, it was good to know that Drake Music is already working well in this area.  The event was filmed and ACE will make it available from 14th March so we’ll post a link here so anyone interested can follow it up.