IBC has announced the launch of the IBC2026 Innovation Awards, with entries now open for projects, programmes and initiatives representing breakthrough advances shaping the global media and entertainment (M&E) industry.
The awards recognise outstanding collaborative projects across five categories: Content Creation, Content Distribution, Content Everywhere, Social Impact, and Environment & Sustainability.
IBC2026 invites organisations across the M&E industry to submit entries demonstrating innovation, collaboration and measurable impact. Reflecting the increasingly multi-dimensional nature of many projects entered into the Innovation Awards, environmental and sustainability initiatives will now be recognised within the Social Impact category, which celebrates work driving meaningful change across society and the industry.
The deadline for entries is midnight on Friday 29 May 2026. Winners will be announced during the IBC2026 Awards reception on Sunday 13 September at the RAI Amsterdam.
Across global electronic media production we are witnessing dramatic changes driven by advances in software-defined technologies, virtualisation, 5G and agentic AI, among others. Intelligent new technologies are transforming the way real-world innovation partnerships deliver breakthrough workflows and consumer experiences in 2026. We look forward to highlighting the best pioneering projects that help advance both the companies involved and the wider industry ecosystem, said Fergal Ringrose, Chair of the IBC Innovation Awards Jury.
A central pillar of IBC, the Innovation Awards celebrate completed real-world projects that demonstrate how collaboration between media organisations and technology partners can overcome creative, operational and commercial challenges.
The awards form part of IBC’s wider innovation ecosystem and complement initiatives such as the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme, which nurtures early-stage ideas through to proof of concept, and the IBC Technical Papers Programme, which showcases peer-reviewed research and emerging ideas exploring the future of M&E technology. The Innovation Awards represent the culmination of the innovation lifecycle that often begins with these programmes, recognising projects that have successfully moved from concept to real-world deployment.
Sam Yoffe, Senior Systems Engineer at Neutral Wireless and Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde, whose work on private 5G in media has been advanced and recognised through both the IBC Accelerator Programme and Innovation Awards, commented: “The IBC Innovation Awards provide highly valued industry recognition for the immense effort invested in developing cutting-edge media technology solutions and innovative productions, as well as the dedication, collaboration and teamwork required to bring them to fruition”.
Ashley Ross, Principal Product Manager at Sky, whose winning MediaMesh project is enabling more agile and scalable broadcast operations across multiple markets, added:
Winning an IBC Innovation Award is hugely significant for everyone involved. These awards matter because they recognise cutting-edge technological innovations that have moved beyond experimentation into real-world industrial use. For Sky, this recognition reflects the scale and complexity of MediaMesh and highlights both the expertise of our teams and the strength of collaboration between broadcaster and vendors.
The winners of the IBC2025 Innovation Awards were:
- In Content Creation, NHK Japan, in co-production with ZDF/ARTE and OceanX, in collaboration with CMMAI, for the first-ever video footage of a group of coelacanths. Technical support was provided by GOTO Aquatics, SGO and Restar.
- In Content Distribution, Sky Group for MediaMesh, together with AWS, SDVI, Telestream and TMT Insights, integrating systems and workflows from broadcasters across Europe to deliver a modular, cloud-native, API-driven platform.
- In Content Everywhere, SVT-AV1: Alliance for Open Media, Intel and Meta, for making video streaming viable on low-end mobile devices and low-bandwidth networks through the development of a decoding-aware mode of the SVT-AV1 software encoder.
- In Social Impact, the Mobile Justice app, developed together with the American Civil Liberties Union and technology partners Jotto, Quadrant2 and Wowza, enabling citizens to document law enforcement encounters in real time and upload evidence for review.
- In Environment & Sustainability, Korea’s SK Telecom, together with Pixtree, for developing an NPU-based, energy-efficient live UHD upscaler integrated into SK Broadband’s IPTV live channels, reducing energy consumption by 80% and preventing 3,728 tonnes of CO₂eq emissions annually.
