Media Makers Meet Earth Shakers
Stories meet solutions. Creators meet changemakers. Ideas become collaborations.
How can media help people understand what is changing, find the people working on it, and build what comes next?
The IMX — An International Media Exposition & Experience
Where media makers meet change makers to turn stories, ideas and solutions into projects, partnerships and progress.
The main purpose should be to create the meeting place and springboard where:
Media makers — journalists, filmmakers, producers, podcasters, creators, publishers, broadcasters and storytellers
meet
Earth shakers — scientists, social entrepreneurs, innovators, community leaders, human-rights advocates, systems thinkers, educators, NGOs, funders and solution builders.
Discover → Connect → Develop → Fund → Produce → Distribute → Act
The Program
| Program | Sessions |
|---|---|
| Opening plenary — From attention to action | What is media for now? How do we move from an attention economy built around keeping people watching toward a participation economy that helps people understand, connect and act? |
| Track 1 — Creating what matters | AI + Human Creativity: How do we use AI without losing authorship, trust or human judgment? |
| From Creator Economy to Creator Ecosystem: What happens when independent creators collaborate rather than operate alone? | |
| Stories + Solutions: How do we tell compelling stories about what is working without turning journalism into promotion? | |
| Creating With Communities: What changes when audiences become participants, sources, collaborators and co-creators? | |
| The New Storytelling Toolkit: Film, podcasts, livestreams, immersive media, short-form, data, interactive storytelling and emerging formats. | |
| Track 2 — Building and financing the work | Media Makers Meet Earth Shakers: The signature IMX matchmaking session. Solution builders bring stories that need telling; media makers bring capabilities looking for stories. |
| The New Economics of Independent Media: Membership, sponsorship, syndication, licensing, grants, subscriptions, co-production and new revenue models. | |
| Funders Meet Projects: Foundations, impact investors, philanthropists, brands and public institutions meet production-ready projects. | |
| Co-Producing Without Borders: How creators and organizations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America can develop projects together. | |
| Funding Without Losing Independence: How public, philanthropic and corporate support can coexist with editorial integrity. | |
| Track 3 — Finding audiences | Who Chooses What We See? Algorithms, gatekeepers, discoverability and the increasingly difficult problem of finding meaningful work. |
| Independent Media at Scale: How small and distinctive voices reach global audiences without becoming giant media companies. | |
| From Audience to Community: Don’t wait until something is produced to build an audience. Build communities around the work from the beginning. | |
| The Global Distribution Exchange: Broadcasters, platforms, publishers, festivals, community media and creators looking for programming meet producers looking for distribution. | |
| The Rights + Licensing Marketplace: Content available for licensing, acquisition, adaptation, translation, syndication or co-production. | |
| Local Stories, Global Reach: How deeply local stories and solutions can travel internationally—a theme also central to Lumière’s local/global approach. | |
| Track 4 — Building a media system worth believing in | Trust in the Age of AI: Verification, provenance, deepfakes, misinformation and transparent production. |
| Freedom to Create and Report: Protecting journalists, artists, filmmakers and independent creators. Lumière makes creative freedom and democracy major parts of its fourth track. | |
| Human Rights as a Media Operating System: What happens when dignity, equality and participation become basic principles for media creation? | |
| Where Are the Young Creators? Open doors to the next generation rather than asking why they abandoned traditional media. | |
| Media Literacy → Media Participation: Go beyond teaching people how to consume media critically. Give them tools to create and participate. This evolves Lumière’s closing emphasis on image literacy. | |
| Did Anything Change? How do we measure media impact beyond clicks, ratings and impressions? | |
| Closing plenary — What starts now? | Projects formed. Partnerships agreed. Funding conversations begun. Stories commissioned. Distribution relationships established. Then announce the projects moving forward during the next 90 days. |
Make the connections created by the sessions the main event.
The IMX Exchange
Before attending, every participant answers three questions:
- I am working on…
- I am looking for…
- I can offer…
Mobilized then matches participants.
For example:
- A climate scientist needs a filmmaker.
- A filmmaker needs financing.
- A foundation needs credible projects.
- A broadcaster needs programming.
- A community has a story.
- A journalist needs local sources.
- A social entrepreneur needs visibility.
- A production company needs distribution.
IMX connects the chain.
The virtual event becomes the catalyst; Mobilized News becomes the year-round infrastructure.
To make it effective, Every session must answer:
What can we do with this?
And ideally produce at least one of four outcomes:
A project. A partnership. A funding opportunity. A pathway to an audience.
Wednesday–Thursday, January 13–14, 2027
Structure:
January 13 — See What’s Changing
Creation, AI, journalism, storytelling, solutions, innovation and project showcases.
January 14 — Build What’s Next
Partnerships, financing, distribution, co-production, working rooms and project commitments.
And because it is virtual, we will not attempt one continuous American-time-zone conference.
Run two global windows each day:
Global Window A: Europe / Africa / Asia-friendly
Global Window B: Americas / Europe-friendly
Important sessions can be repeated, rebroadcast or handed from one region to another.
That itself reinforces the idea of an International Media Exposition, rather than an American conference being streamed internationally.
See it. Meet them. Build it. Share it.
The IMX is the global meeting place where media makers and change makers discover each other, showcase what they’re creating, develop projects, find partners and resources, and bring stories and solutions that improve life to the people who need them.
Media Makers Meet Earth Shakers
Stories meet solutions. Creators meet changemakers. Ideas become collaborations.