Barbara Lange

Barbara Lange will step down as the tech society’s executive director at the close of 2021. She has served in this role for 12 years, guiding SMPTE through a dynamic period of growth. (SMPTE photo)

Media companies that have scrambled to implement new workflows in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic this year will be looking for technology standards to govern them in 2021, according to four leading technologists and two rising stars set to receive TVNewsCheck’s 2020 Women in Technology Awards. During a “Predictions for 2021” conversation to be held immediately following the awards presentation ceremony on Monday, honorees will offer their thoughts on the follow-up to 2020’s extraordinary circumstances, including addressing some complicated tech debt questions.

Barbara Lange, SMPTE’s executive director, is one of TVNewsCheck’s 2020 Women in Technology Leadership Award honorees. Her forward-looking moves at the organization — digitizing its archives and growing and diversifying its membership chief among them — have pivoted SMPTE to feel more “like a 100-year-old startup.”

The recipients of TVNewsCheck’s annual Women in Technology Leadership Award — SMPTE’s Barbara Lange and WarnerMedia’s Lisa Pedrogo — are  women who have contributed substantially toward advancing their industry technologically. The award supports the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation’s Technology Apprenticeship Program, which places graduating engineers, who are women or people of color, in broadcast industry internships. They will be honored in a virtual awards presentation and panel discussion on Oct. 19.

Experts say the broadcast industry’s transition to IP infrastructure is likely to dominate this year’s show in Amsterdam. But there’s still plenty of room for developments in the cloud, artificial intelligence, OTT, cybersecurity and more to keep technologists busy on both the show floor and in its conference rooms.

For more IBC 2019 coverage, click here.