Clear-Com Supports Second Annual Rise Up Academy Summer School

The company provided IP intercom solutions and hands-on production experience for the event, which is part of the larger Rise Up Academy outreach program for UK youth.

Clear-Com^® is proud to have supported the second annual Rise Up Academy Summer School at the Global Academy in London, UK from July 25-28, 2023. The event is part of the Rise Up Academy, a vocational STEM outreach program that provides primary and secondary school children aged nine through 18 in the UK the opportunity to participate in hands-on broadcast engineering and technical workshops while working directly with experts in broadcast and post-production. For this year’s event, Clear-Com provided their award-winning Arcadia^® Central Station, a scalable IP intercom platform integrating FreeSpeak^® Digital Wireless and HelixNet^® Digital Partyline systems and a range of IEM headsets and accessories.

Over 400 students considering a career in the media and entertainment industry participated in the event, engaging in experiences that introduced them to a complete range of media and broadcast technologies and disciplines including cloud, graphics, virtual, and post-production.

One highlight of the academy was a practicum for students to build a TV studio and production facility, produce, and participate in their very own game show, ‘Rise Up!’. Assisted by volunteers from the media industry, students received hands-on experience with the Arcadia intercom system and learned how essential a flexible intercom system is for production – from the camera operators to the game show host and all crew members in between.  They also immersed themselves in the sound, video, graphics, and director/producer positions to fully understand how each role is integral to the entire production environment.

Clear-Com’s Senior Systems Consultant for EMEA, John Sparrow, was on-site again this year as team leader for the studio build on two of the sessions. “I’ve been supporting Rise Up as they visit various University Technical Colleges in the UK since before the pandemic,” he said. “It’s always a thrill to see the student’s faces light up when they get a grip on the hardware and software involved in producing a TV show.”

Co-Founder and Chair of Rise Up Academy, Andy Beale, adds, “Delivering these events is only possible with the incredible support of our partners, including Clear-Com who provided both sponsorship and comms equipment. Without them, we would never be able to get our message across to so many young people.”

Clear-Com is a longtime supporter of Rise, a nonprofit organization that supports women in the media and entertainment technology sector with the mission to ensure a diverse, gender-balanced workforce across engineering, technical operations, sales, marketing and business roles. Clear-Com is a corporate sponsor of Rise and is sponsoring the Product Innovation Award for the 2023 Rise Awards.