I am an interactive media specialist with 15 years' experience leading projects that push the boundaries of new technology within different organisations. I get involved at the start of new projects, scoping them and developing prototypes.
I recently received our new TV licence, and with the New Year schedules kicking off it seemed like a good time to dust off my Margate souvenir television savings box and start popping in a pound or two each time something from the BBC felt like money well spent.
I thought it would be interesting to see how long it took to fill the box with £145.50 (the annual cost of a colour TV licence in the UK). Unfortunately it seems pound coins were invented after television savings boxes as they don’t fit through the slot. So after all that I think I’ll stick to the direct debit.
Last year I pulled together the proposal for a collaborative project between BBC Research and Development and MetaBroadcast which won funding from the Technology Strategy Board. The Automatic Broadcast Content Interlinking Project (ABC-IP for short) is developing advanced text processing techniques to link together incomplete sources of metadata around large video and audio collections. The aim is to work out new ways to unlock archive content and build a range of new services that help audiences find their way around programmes from the BBC and beyond. You can read more by me on the BBC R&D blog about work behind the scenes and check out MetaBroadcast’s blog to see more about the first prototype called Tellytopic.
I made it to the Isle of Wight on my swim and thanks to everyone who sponsored me I raised £1200 for the Samaritans.
Despite strong winds at the weekend it turned out to be a lovely morning for the swim yesterday.
It was colder than I expected. I was one of the few swimmers not wearing a wetsuit but hot tea at the finish and the rising sun soon warmed me up.
Having trained to do crawl I ended up swimming breaststroke most of the way as I wanted to take in the view, so I have a whole new set of muscles hurting today!
Here’s how it looked on the way back in the boat:
