BAVC started in 1976 as a coalition of independent videomakers, and although BAVC’s focus has expanded over the years to include other types of media technologies and programming, our commitment to supporting the creation of high-quality, socially-relevant, stories remains.

What those stories look like; of course, seems to change every year, and a large part of our mission is to make sure that diverse media makers have the resources and training needed to continue to tell their stories in relevant, competitive, and innovative ways.

New technology is spawning “new media,” yet few of these developments are focused on the independent producer and community voices. Except here at BAVC . . .

BAVC’s Next Generation Community Innovation Lab is a flexible technology work-space designed to incubate new media technologies and/or appropriate the latest technology for new, civic-minded applications. At the Innovation Lab, diverse participants work side-by-side in developing applications of new technologies across fields.With our history of relationship building across industry, government and creative communities, BAVC is uniquely positioned to integrate community application into an innovative development space for independent mediamakers.

The Lab currently supports a variety of projects including our Producers Institute for New Media Technologies, the Non-Profit Institute for New Media Technologies, Innovation-Artist-in-Residence, our Strategic Initiatives and other special development projects and partnerships.

Working in partnership with San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco, the Lab is now connected to a high-speed, 10Gbit research network through the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the National LambdaRail. This connection dramatically increases our ability to support innovative collaboration and media innovation.

For more information about the Community Innovation Lab, please contact BAVC's Director of Creative Programming, Wendy Levy.