Is it possible to see the future? We often tell ourselves it is. And what can be more fun than making educated guesses about how time will find us in one, three, five years? For cable, forecasting the future is more of a science than an art. Cable companies and content providers ask themselves every day, what will be the expectations of my customers and viewers in the years ahead? What programs and services can we offer to help enhance their lives? So when we at the Cable Impacts Foundation decided to join forces earlier this year with the Alliance for Women in Media (AWM), to fund a competitive scholarship for college women who are intent on building their careers in media, we were intrigued in particular by one applicant’s personalized look at the future. How would she, her friends and family, be communicating five years from now? How would the “new media” of today mature into the ubiquitous communication tools of tomorrow? In short, what will our media and communications landscape look like? That extraordinary proposal came from University of Southern California graduate student Amelia Giller. And to make it more interesting, Amelia indicated she would paint her vision of the near-future in digital, animated, graphic arts form. An artist, animator, and illustrator living in Los Angeles, Amelia told us she is particularly sensitive to a lack of information about how young women are looking at the digital future. “Forecasting future trends in technology through the eyes of digital artists is important because we are most often early adopters and style-setters for emerging software, hardware and new media,” Amelia wrote in her scholarship proposal. “I find my gender’s perspective especially unique and also rarely highlighted. I have chosen to highlight how women make use of technology primarily based upon their personal values, as well as the importance of clean and innovative energy sources, and the role of education in providing for a technologically literate future."
"Our technology sector is obsessed not only with how we should design products and services, but also with how consumers might use and leverage them to enhance their lives."
“It is especially important to show the perspective of how future women and girls might make use of new technology, because their values and uses are different than those of their male counterparts,” Amelia added. This thinking resonated with us. Cable and telecommunications always have been as much about the future as they are about the present. Our technology sector is obsessed not only with how we should design products and services, but also with how consumers might use and leverage them to enhance their lives. Amelia’s proposal was a winner, and in October, she was presented jointly by AWM and NCTA a modest scholarship in return for completing her project, to show us, well, the future. “Women use the internet to communicate with friends and family, to share what they like and want, and to connect to others around the world,” said Amelia. Indeed, that’s so much of what cable and broadband are about – laying the foundation for all of us to, as Amelia says, “bond in an intimate and true-to-life way.” We’re proud of the work that Amelia accomplished in her animated feature, called “Connected Together.” And we hope you’ll enjoy it too. You can watch it below.
We were also pleased that day to announce a second scholarship recipient, Saman Malik, a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City. Saman is creating a digital multimedia story exploring the landscape of digital literacy in the United States – another topic that is critical to the use and adoption of broadband services. More on that project when Saman’s piece is complete.