Media Cymru’s Sally Griffith: “It’s about finding the voices we don’t usually hear from”

At 11:30 on 12 September 2025, the “Entry Level: The Landscape for Young Talent and the Relationship Between Media and Education” session saw a number of top professionals join the  Hall 14 Hackfest Stage, including: Polly Hickling, Education Vice President (EVP) of SMPTE; Alice Carlin, Audiovisual Production Student at INSA Hauts-de-France; Daniella Smith, BA Hons Television Production Student at Southampton Solent University; Chaitanya Chinchlikar, Vice President (VP), Business Head, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Head of Emerging Media at Whistling Woods International; Sally Griffith, Research and Development (R&D) Producer at Media Cymru; Wolfgang Ruppel, Professor at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences.

The media industry’s relationship with the education sector plays a key role in ensuring the future workforce is ready for the trials ahead. For students, it can be challenging to get a realistic representation of this opaque industry, according to Alice Carlin, Audiovisual Production Student at L’Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) Hauts-de-France. She said: “We would like to see participants in the industry reach out to us and tell us what they want from us and how to get hired.” 

Chaitanya Chinchlikar, Vice President (VP), Business Head, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Head of Emerging Media at Whistling Woods International, highlighted the importance of updating a curriculum to meet industry needs. He added: “We aim to teach students the workflows and the technologies that will exist when they graduate four years from now, and we need to plan that today. That’s not possible without the support of technology partners.” 

Sally Griffith, R&D Producer at Media Cymru, highlighted the importance of connecting industry to academia, due to the knowledge exchange this facilitates. “We have 23 consortium partners across BBC, Channel 4, but also smaller companies too,” she said. “We're looking for new technology, new ways of telling stories, new ways of engaging audiences.” 

She also flags the need for skills training to go beyond university, so it is not only connecting students to projects, but providing support all the way through people’s careers. This would facilitate retraining and continuous skills building. Diversity and inclusion were also highlighted. “So many of our projects and teams recognise that change doesn’t always come from the centre. It’s about finding the voices we don’t usually hear from.”