Biography: 

Vincent Grivet, is a graduate from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris France) and Paris Tech Telecom. He worked for eighteen years for the international activities of the Orange Group, including a time as Chief Executive Officer of Wanadoo, Orange’s internet services unit in Belgium. In 2006, he was a co-founder of Maxtel, an entrepreneurial Wireless Broadband start-up which obtained significant spectrum rights in a competitive bid. He currently works for the TDF Group, where he is in charge of Broadcast Development and Innovation.

Biography:

Thomas Follin is the Managing Director of SALTO, the new French streaming platform founded bythe 3 major French broadcasters : France Télévisions, M6 and TF1. Salto subscribers can enjoymajor TV brands, all series episodes available, in preview, live or replay mode, but can alsodiscover new and original fictions from all around the world. Thomas was previously Deputy Managing Director and Excom Member at GROUPE M6 where hewas in charge of 6play, the digital app of GROUPE M6, and the distribution of all Channels & Audiovisual Services of the group ; Thomas has notably developed the Group channels & services revenues on all networks and platforms, as well as digital innovation for M6 Group antennas. Thomas started at Groupe M6 in 2002 in the strategy and development team. He joined M6 WEBin 2008 to launch M6 Replay, the first replay service in France. Thomas Follin holds a DESS / MASTER 2 in Telcos and New Media from Université Paris Dauphine.

Paul Gray leads the home devices research, spanning television sets, smart home, consumer electronics, and domestic appliances. His main research area is TV sets, focusing on the European region, broadcast technology, smart TV, and new TV features. Paul is also heavily engaged in researching the development of the Ultra HD ecosystem.

He joined Omdia, formerly IHS Markit, more than 10 years ago. With more than 30 years’ experience in the TV set supply chain working for NXP and Philips in semiconductors and displays, Paul continues to research the TV set business. He has also worked on wearable and media devices and has tracked and forecast the smart TV business from its very beginning. Paul has been cited by, among others, the Financial Times, Korea Times, Korea Daily, Nikkei, and Le Monde. He has also offered expert viewpoints in online, radio, and television programming. Paul holds a degree in electrical engineering and a diploma in industrial studies.

Biography:

Teppo Ahonen is responsible for Digita’s TV operations, including the Terrestrial TV, pay-TV, and HybridTV services. He has worked in various management and development positions in Digita’s Television business for over 20 years. In addition, Teppo represents Digita in various TV industry working groups both in Finland and internationally.

Biography: 

Biography: After an early career in audio and working for broadcasters, Anais joined Dolby in 2010 to look after broadcast. Her role has since expanded with the business to cover all audiovisual areas in French home entertainment across broadcast, gaming and music. With a wealth of expertise in image and sound, her goal is to ensure a smooth adoption of the Dolby technologies across the eco-system – delivering an immersive and lifelike entertainment experience to many consumers whether they are watching movies or their favourite TV programmes, playing games or listening to the latest music album released.

Biography: Jörn Krieger has been working as a freelance journalist, specialised in digital media, broadcast technology, convergence and new markets, since 1992. His articles are published by German and international industry publications such as Broadband TV News, InfoDigital, Digitalmagazin, Cable!vision Europe and Medien Bulletin. Jörn also takes up University lectureships, conducts workshops and seminars and hosts panel discussions at industry events such as Deutsche TV-Plattform Symposium, ANGA COM, Medientage München and IFA Berlin.

Biography: 

Olivia May currently leads Product Development at Freeview Play (Digital UK) – the innovative hybrid DTT television joint venture owned by BBC, ITV and Channel 4, which is the fastest-growing TV platform in Britain.

Olivia joined Freeview Play, after another stint in New York, from Youview; where she was in Product Management with a primary focus on future platform strategy. Before Youview she worked as a consultant at PA Consulting, OC&C and Curzon Consulting for Sky, on strategy and organizational change projects across the UK and North America specialising in Media and Finance. Olivia is passionate about creating products and intuitive experiences, which everyone can enjoy – not just those with the means or abilities to access them.

Biography: Sylvain brings a successful track record of 25+ years’ experience of designing new products with customer experience at the heart, and rolling them out internationally, as he did for market leading Communications and Content applications across 30 countries in Vodafone, as well as managing large fixed and mobile telecoms P&Ls (TalkTalk, Vodafone, EE).

Sylvain joined the Executive Committee of Netgem in 2015, creating the London office of Netgem Group, a well-established leader of Connected TV products since 1996. He has played a key role in transforming the Netgem Business model from a ‘STB vendor’ to a ‘Service provider’ now achieving 90% recurring revenue and high growth, focusing on innovations for Telecom and Media service providers with a fully managed ‘Content-as-a-service’ approach.

Sylvain launched ‘EE TV’ in 2014 establishing as the most innovative Multi-screen TV experience with multiple Industry awards, and subsequently launched ‘Netgem TV’ in the UK, the ‘super aggregator TV service’ with Freeview Play at the heart completed by the most popular OTT services such as Amazon Prime, Youtube, Britbox, BT Sport etc… now adopted by 15 Fibre ISPs and launching with TalkTalk for their next generation 4K service.

Biography:

Top manager with more than 20 years experience in media business, digital media, advertising, AdTech, big data, market research and ML.

Teletarget is focused on the development and management of technological projects in the following fields: Addressable TV, Interactive video and TV, automated content recognition, audience segmentation using machine learning algorithms. Teletarget is the main HbbTV platform at the Russian market.

Biography:

Julian Clover is a Media and Technology journalist based in Cambridge, UK. He is the editor of Broadband TV News, an online business-to-business publication and is a presenter on Cambridge 105 Radio. An accomplished conference moderator, Julian is a regular chairman at Cable Congress, ANGA COM and the Broadband TV News Business Breakfasts. He has also chaired election hustings for the 2017 and 2019 General Elections and the 2019 European Election.On radio, Julian presents Cambridge Breakfast on Cambridge 105 Radio (with Lucy Milazzo) as well as anchoring the station’s coverage of local and national elections, the Cambridge Folk Festival, Remembrance Sunday and Midnight Mass.

Biography:

Jason Patton joined Verance headquartered in San Diego, California as Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing in 2017. Verance is bringing to life a watermarking solution to solve Europe’s set-top box problem for two-way interactive experiences in regions including France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordics. Prior to Verance, Jason led advanced viewing experiences at LeEco, Immersion and In Demand. Jason is a graduate of AT&T’s Financial Leadership Program, Boston University and the Harvard Business School.

Biography:

Xavi Redon is leading the Spanish broadcasters HbbTV platform LOVEStv (HbbTV Jury Award in 2018) and also the TDT Híbrida certification process in Spain. Since Digital TV appeared, has been working for the TV evolution in Spain, developing and promoting technologies such as hybrid TV, Ultra High Definition, HD, MHP and DTT. He has a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, a Postgraduate degree in Telecommunications Management at Institut Català de la Tecnologia and a Master in Marketing and Sales in EAE Business School

Biography:

As Co-founder and Managing Director of Nowtilus, Leander Carell oversees Product & Marketing of the company’s Server-Side Ad-Insertion Platform SERVERSIDE.AI. With offices in Berlin and Halle/Saale and an international Partner-Network Leander drives the business development and solution integration with Service Operators, Streaming Platforms and Broadcasters.

Leander has been an entrepreneur and established player in the media industry for 18 years. With his former movie production company, he was an OSCAR Nominee for the Best Foreign Feature “IN DARKNESS” in 2012. He sold Nowtilus to Rovi Corp. in 2011 and managed a buy-out in 2014, driving the company to the next level of streaming monetization and personalization. Leander holds a degree as media merchant and postgraduate of EAVE for International Film Production and Marketing.

Biography: 

Sebastian Busse is Director Addressable TV International at Smartclip Europe – the leading video ad-tech platform shaping the future of video advertising — delivering advanced online video and addressable TV advertising solutions.

Busse started his career in digital media sales at several digital agencies, including NetRange where he was responsible for the growth of TV and VOD solutions, and IMG Media where he rolled out their online video business. Today, Busse brings over 15 years of extensive experience in the broadcast and online advertising industry, and has gained a thorough understanding of both the buy and supply side.

With his passion for online video, connected TV and addressable TV advertising, Busse is often seen on stage sharing his vision about how to pave the way for a future of true, addressable TV.

Biography: 

Equipped with a degree in Public Relations from IULM, Milan 1999, Silvia Broggi now works within the media Industry, specialising in TV and advertising. Her career began working with the Mediaset Group in 2000, positioned in the International Sales House Publieurope, in the role of Group Product Manager. Silvia was posted for four years in London from where she managed the operative marketing for branches in London, Paris, Munich, Losanne and Madrid.

In 2004 Silvia returned to Milan to enter Publitalia ’80 as International Marketing Manager. The significant international experience in Silvia’s professional development during the 8 years as International Marketing Manager, include orchestrating a collaboration with the Sales house of Nessma, a Maghrebian satellite TV channel (Tunis, Morocco, Algeria) for which she was posted in Tunis for 2 years, and a 6 month placement in Paris 2011 as Sales Manager for Publieurope.

In 2012 Silvia returned to Milan for the promotion to Head of International Marketing of Publitalia ’80.  Five years later she took on a second and simultaneous role as Marketing Director for the newly born AdTech&Business Development Division. This dual role is where she remains today – in charge of international marketing and marketing technology, where she manages the go to market, sale and development of Publitalia’80 addressable advertising offer.

Biography:

Addressable TV advertising stands for the ability to show different ads to different households while they are watching the same linear TV program. My team of engineers is connecting TV technologies like broadcast automation with internet technologies like HbbTV in a profitable way. We are using a broad selection of technologies for specific use cases like: JavaScript/node.js for frontend and backend development, C#/.net to interface with broadcast automation and Python for data engineering and error analysis.

I am working for more than 15 years now for the SevenOne Entertainment Group. Starting as a developer I worked on projects like Teletext (Perl), web-based CMSs (PHP and Java), database frontends (Ruby on Rails) and Webservices (node.js).

Before my engagement with SevenOne I founded an internet agency together with 3 partners and grew it to a size of 20 employees. I studied physics in Munich, but I somehow got stuck with IT and software development. In my spare time I like mountaineering and paragliding if my job and my family allows it.

Biography:

Is an accomplished professional with sharp business acumen and 15+ years success in sales, marketing and business development.

He is the Sales and Marketing Director of Tivù S.r.l. (a JV between Mediaset RAI, and TIM), responsible for sales and post-sales activities with device manufacturers, broadcasters and retailers. Luca also heads licensing and certification testing for LaTivù 4K and tivùsat.

Prior to joining Tivù, Mr. Luca was a Consultant in Booz & Company (formerly Booz Allen Hamilton LLC) as member of the Communication Media and Technology team he specialized in digital TV, emerging media, digital convergence, technology and new media business initiatives.

Luca holds an Industry Executive Masters degree in Media and Entertainment from Copenhagen Business School SIMI and an MSc in Company Management from LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.

Biography: 

James Jackson is the Technology Director of Digital UK where he is responsible for the management of the technology, specifications and systems supporting the UK’s largest free to air television platform.  Building on the success of Freeview, James has led the technical development of Freeview Play platform, which offers free to view access to DTT broadcast and IP delivered content from all of the UK’s major broadcasters.  Over the last 6 years, Freeview Play has grown to be the largest HbbTV platform worldwide and now reaches more than 10m active devices in UK homes.  James has extensive experience of developing and managing distribution services and prior to joining Digital UK, James held a range of senior roles within the BBC’s strategy, distribution and technology teams, encompassing commercial and engineering management.

Biography:

Martin Faehnrich graduated in 1985 in telecommunication electronics (‘Nachrichtentechnik’). He started his career developing in CCTV business, developing video processing real-time systems for professional large-scale CCTV systems.

He joined Panasonic in 1999 and was leader of a team for video signal processing, working very closely with Japan. In 2002 he was appointed to set-up a section for standardisation at the European TV-development centre in Germany (PLDC).

Since 2008 he is manager standardisation. He and his team are in charge of Panasonic’s AV related standardisation activities in Europe. He is also member of several top-level activities at various industry associations, including HbbTV Steering Group.

Biography:

I have worked in the TV industry for over 30 years, firstly in broadcasting (terrestrial, cable and satellite), then network operator and currently as a CE manufacturer. I have both business and engineering degrees and use all this experience to work on both the commercial and technical aspects of our industry. I am currently Director of Innovation and R&D for LG Electronics, responsible for TV platforms across all of Europe. I participate in many standardisation activities and am currently a Steering Board member of HbbTV.

Biography:

Pedro Valiente is an International Business Development Manager at Kineton, responsible for driving the growth of Kineton’s business in the EMEA region.

Prior to this has managed device testing and certification for the Italian conformance regimes and has supported the TV and STB manufacturer in their product development process in order to comply to Italian specification, including HbbTV.

Personally involved in the migration from MHP to HbbTV in Italy. Education includes an M.A. in engineering and executive course in project management.

Pedro is currently member of the “UHD FORUM Italia” board, HbbTV and DVB groups and has been member of the HbbTV Steering Board for four years.”

Biography:

Ian is Business Development Manager for Eurofins Digital Testing, Device Professional Services, where his focus is on providing conformance tools and services for broadcasters and content providers. He has been involved in Digital TV since 1998, as a software developer and part of the management team at Digital TV Group in the UK. Ian has previously been Chair of the HbbTV Testing Working Group and a member of the HbbTV Steering Group.”

Biography

Working for almost 15 years in the TV/Radio environment, through the production, the infrastructure, the launching of different TV Channels and a lot of really challenging broadcast projects, I choosed now to work in a digital environment with this really challenging and ambitious project of Salto.

The goal is to build and to follow the evolution of the consumption to bring to the end user to the best and the sweet experience as possible.

Biography:

DVB broadcast products and testing and certification services for DVB and HbbTV at Sofia Digital

“Juha Joki has many years’ experience in DVB and HbbTV technologies. Currently he is in charge of DVB broadcast products and testing and certification services for DVB and HbbTV at Sofia Digital.”

Biography:

Leticia is a Senior telecommunication engineer with strong background in Telecom, embedded Software development, broadcast and hybrid Digital TV. In 2011 she joined Philips TV, formally TP Vision. Since then, she works in the certification group, involved in TV EU Product Conformance and European TV Certifications, she leads hybrid TV Test projects and certifications, like TDT Spain, UK, FVP, La TiVu, FV Australia, NZ , etc beside others. Her expertise makes her worked in multiple international projects delivering bespoke HbbTV market solutions, like TA, CS, Replay, LovesTV etc. participating in multiple HbbTV workshops organized by broadcasters, facing technical challenges due to new HbbTV standards, new technologies or new SW platform. Her company role has been key to bring Philips TV’s to a high-quality products tailored to meet HbbTV growing segmentation and new market needs. She is active member of Testing group and Improving Interop task force of HbbTV.org working groups.

Biography: 

Van leads a team that provides solutions for HbbTV and ATSC 3.0 Interactive Content.

Prior to her current role, Van had been responsible for cooperation with regulators and standard bodies on Digital TV standardization in CEE and Africa from 2008 to 2013. She has actively contributed to the development of technical specifications for DVB-T in Poland.

From 2012 to 2015, Van was the Vice-Chair of the Digital Broadcasting section at the Polish Chamber of Commerce for Electronics and Telecommunications.

Van joined HbbTV Testing Group in 2011. She was elected group Vice-Chair in 2013 and group Chair in 2018.

Van received the award for the Outstanding Contribution to the Process of Digital Transformation in Poland in 2014 and the award for the Best Individual Contribution to the HbbTV Association in 2017.

Biography:

He played a major role facilitating the convergence of the original French and German initiatives which together become HbbTV. He is a member of the Steering Board of the DVB project and the Steering Committee of the CTA Web Application Video Ecosystem (WAVE) project. Jon has been a leading figure in the development of specifications for integration of TV and interactivity for more than ten years. This has included being the chairman of groups in DVB, the Open IPTV Forum and the UK DTG.

Jon is now Director, Standardisation for TP Vision (who manufacture Philips TVs for Europe and a number of other territories). He has previously held senior positions related to standardisation in several different units of Philips.

Biography:

At EBU, he heads the team responsible for innovation projects relating to delivery technologies, spectrum management and software platforms. Amongst other things, he is responsible for spectrum matters and high-level projects related to Hybrid Radio and Television including HbbTV, DVB, RadioDNS and others. In July 2016, he was elected Chairman of the DVB Project, and retains a role as co-chair of the HbbTV Requirements Group. He is an Irish national living and working in Switzerland.

Biography: 

Franziska works as Product Owner for Zattoo’s Android TV for Operator product with prime responsibility for the planning and development of Zattoo’s custom launcher application and its integration into each of Zattoo’s OEM partner devices. Before coming to Zattoo, Franziska worked for Thalia Bücher, firstly as a project manager and then progressed to Product Owner. Franziska holds a Master of Arts degree from HTWK Leipzig and is also an accredited PSPO Product Owner.

Biography: 

After starting her career in TV production in Berlin, followed by 10 years of shaping operator platforms and TV-Apps at TeraVolt in Hamburg, Rachel Mischke moved to the role of PO for Smart TV at Zattoo. There, she and the Smart TV team were responsible for all web-based Smart TV white label apps. During that time the team overhauled the way their apps are built across all major TV brands and expanded the Zattoo app to Panasonic TVs which then evolved into the operator app. She recently took on the role of product consultant at Zattoo TV Platform to shape the future of the service with and for Zattoo’s platform customers.

Biography:

Erik Gazzoni is currently in charge of Product/Partnership Director for SmarDTV Technology.

As such he’s looking after the DVB-CIPlus roadmap to define next generation Conditional Access Module Product Line.

Before he was Head of Cable and IPTV products where he led the Product definition for two-way networks.

Erik has been involved in various Standardization committees and Working groups like Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and OpenCable to DVB initiatives.

He’s now Chairman of CIPlus LLP Board.

Biography:

Michiel Willemsen is a sales director responsible for selected,strategic, accounts in Europe. Michiel joined Irdeto in 1996 as liaison officer for various joint ventures and co-operations aimed at developing products based on the DVB standard.
Prior to that Michiel spent 17 years at Digital Equipment Corporation in a range of roles. Michiel is passionate about achieving a box-less TV solution that appeals equally to Pay-media operators and their customers as well as to free-to-air viewers.

Biography: 

Ruth Van Laeke works as certification manager for TP Vision. Having joined Philips R&D in 2002, she has expertise in several domains. From validation in the earlier years to software project leading and project management later on.

As certification manager she is responsible for the compliance of the newly developed TV platforms to the broadcast standards and operators requirements, within Europe and Russia.

Title of the speech : “HD+ OpApp development : From takeoff to successful landing”

Hence I will talk about how we approached the integration of the HD+ OpApp in our products: explain on the project organization, cooperation with external partners, the challenges and share some learnings.

Biograhpy:

Angelo is an experienced interactive media professional. He has worked in technical television departments focusing on digital technology and specifically on interactive TV. Angelo is overviewing the standardization bodies activities mainly in the interactive TV field; he is involved in the open technical standard designing working group of the DVB – the Digital Video Broadcasting Project for the delivery of digital TV – and of the HbbTV Association – the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV, a global initiative aimed at harmonising the broadcast and broadband delivery of entertainment services to consumers through connected TV devices.

Biography: 

Martin Prins is Head of Product at Media Distillery, an Amsterdam based startup specialized in using AI to understand what’s inside video. With an R&D-background in streaming and broadcast media, Martin is responsible for Media Distillery’s Deep Understanding Platform, which helps video service providers make sure viewers find content they are interested in, in the least amount of time. Prior to joining Media Distillery, Martin worked as Senior Media Consultant at TNO. In this role he helped broadcasters and operators with innovations such as OTT content delivery, UltraHD and Addressable TV, and participated in HbbTV and DVB standardization.

Biography:

Passionate about technology, Nello joined Kineton since its foundation. He started his journey creating the Kineton’s HbbTV development framework. He has become Head of Development of Media Applications. The passion for technology and innovation in development processes has lead Kineton to become a leader in the development of media applications.

Nello follows the entire development process, from the collection of requirements through to maintenance, he is in charge of various media projects, being always in close contact with the customer in the pursuit of continuous improvement.

Biography:

As Senior Vice President, Client Solutions & Integration at Nagra, Christian Van Boven helps operators and D2C brands to evolve their multiscreen presence in video and fan engagement. With his global perspective, he is a recognized expert in video technology since 20+ years.

His career has focused on IPTV and multiscreen engineering with a keen understanding of how the business challenges can be translated into a stream of ongoing innovation. As VP at Alcatel-Lucent, he created the industry-leading IPTV solution in the early days. At Nagra, he spearheaded the transition to cloud technology and agile development methodologies. His current focus is on client technologies and user experience in a world increasingly dominated by technology giants.

He holds a degree in Electrotechnical Engineering from University Ghent (Belgium) and a M. Sc. in Telecom Network Engineering from Télécom Paris.

Biography:

Paul has spent his entire 30 years career in the television industry in a variety of engineering, marketing, strategy and business leadership roles. Whilst at Philips, Paul initially worked in analogue TV before driving the transition to digital. Paul has spent the last 8 years as CEO leading the transformation of Ocean Blue Software (OBS) from a traditional software licencing business to the pioneer in the application of open/shared source broadcast software. Paul was instrumental in the founding of both DTVKit and The Open Red Button Project (ORB) and is a governing board member of DTVKit.

Biography:

With 25+ years’ experience in Operations and Sales&Marketing, in the Media sector Oliver is involved in Omnichannel Video Distribution and Monetization, OTT and NextGen Hybrid TV (ATSC3.0 and HbbTV), Addressable TV Advertising, AI/ML-based Video Augmentation and Accessibility Enhancement, as their application to Monetization, Audience Segmentation, UX Personalization and User Engagement.

Biography:

Widely respected for her consensus-building leadership style, she chaired the ATSC technology group that oversees the ATSC 3.0 next-generation broadcast standard before being named ATSC President in May 2019. Previously, she chaired various ATSC 3.0-related specialist groups, ad hoc groups and implementation teams since 2012.

A 15-year industry veteran, Noland held key technology management and standards roles at Backchannelmedia Inc., Telvue Corp. and LG Electronics.  She received TV NewsCheck’s “2019 Futurist” Women in Technology Award and was named one of 2018’s “Powerful Women in Consumer Technology” by Dealerscope magazine. In 2016, she received the ATSC’s highest technical honor, the Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award. She graduated cum laude from the University of Massachusetts.

Biography:

Louay Bassbouss is a scientist and senior project manager R&D in the business unit Future Applications and Media (FAME) of the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communications Systems (FOKUS). He works on Future Web Applications, Multiscreen Technologies & Standards, and 360° Video Technologies. Louay actively participates in various standardization groups in W3C, HbbTV and CTA. He is the co-chair of the W3C Second Screen Working and Community Groups and actively contributes to various testing activities in HbbTV and CTA WAVE.

Biography:

After studying Law and Business Management, Serge Bidault began his professional career as Head of Communications at Limagrain Group (4th largest seed global company). Then he held various general management responsibilities in the Media, Information Technologies (ICT) sector working with several companies including press agency TF1-LCI, Audiovisual Production Companies and furthermore heading up regional TV channels in France… He was also appointed Deputy-CEO of a broadcast software solutions editor specializing in technologies for major players (M6, France Televisions, TF1, Next Radio, French Senate…). In 2017, he took over operational management of 2 innovative French companies in image technologies (Real Time 3D engine, AR & VR…) for civil industries like VALEO Group and for military applications. In 2020, the owners of the Swiss-Italian group FINCONS GROUP, Michele and Francesco Moretti, entrusted him with the general management in France, which plays a key part in the internationalization strategy successfully pursued.

Biography: 

Xavier Darrigol, co-founded Retency, a French sciences company specialized in private data processing and other applications of deep anonymization research. Retency notably validated, GDPR-compliant data analytics engines that do not require user consent. Before founding Retency, Xavier worked for Thales Aerospace, and later undertook a career in M&A, at Merrill Lynch, Lazard and Deutsche Bank as a Managing Director. Xavier graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in France, and holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Biography:

With 30 years of TV industry experience, Richard drives the DTG’s unique collaborative culture placing it firmly at the centre of UK television. A design engineer by profession, Richard spent 15 years in senior design and later, senior marketing and strategy roles at Sony, Toshiba and Pace.

Richard has a track record of supporting UK world-firsts in flat-panel, widescreen, digital and interactive TV. He launched the world’s first free-to-view digital devices into the UK market at Pace in 2002, joined the DTG in 2004 to lead public affairs in preparation for digital switchover, and later picked up the mantle of Commercial Development Director for Freesat’s launch in HD in 2006. He returned to the DTG as CEO in 2008, where he continues to drive innovation in next generation media, distribution and end-user experience.

Richard is former chair, and current vice-chair, of the TRIC Awards and a trustee of the UK’s first new university for 40 years – one solely dedicated to technology and engineering. Passionate about the alchemy of people, products and technology, and always looking out for the next big thing in television, Richard was named one of the top 50 most influential people in the sector earlier this year and has just been honored by SMPTE as one of their 2021 Fellows.

Biography:

Responsible for corporate projects in digital transformation, digital strategy, data management strategy, new digital business, Pay TV and pay OTT business.

Biography:

Sam Matheny is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at the National Association of Broadcasters. With over 25 years of experience in the broadcast and data networking industries, including earning a patent for inventing mobile and interactive DTV technologies, Matheny leads NAB’s technology team in its efforts to promote innovation and propel broadcast technology into the future. He also provides overall leadership for PILOT as well as NAB’s TV, Radio, and Digital Technology Committees.

Matheny is a member of the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers.  He serves on the board of the Ultra HD Forum, the board of governors for the National Wireless Safety Alliance, the board of visitors for East Carolina University, and as a non-resident fellow of the German Marshall Fund. He has served as an advisor to numerous startup and technology companies and is currently engaged with Reveal Mobile, a location-based advertising technology company, and Haystack TV, a personalized OTT headline news channel. He has previously served on the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Integrated Public Alert Warning System Network Advisory Council (IPAWS NAC), and on the board of directors for the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), where he was Chairman of the specialist group on the next generation of digital television.

Biography:

Emily took up her current position as Head of Technology in January 2020, coming to DVB with 20 years’ experience in the digital television industry. She has worked with several DVB Members across a variety of roles, including with Thomson Video Networks (Harmonic), TeamCast (ENENSYS Technologies) and SmarDTV/Neotion.

Emily has strong expertise in the traditional broadcast world along with a solid grounding in emerging technologies from the broadband world. As Head of Technology, Emily leads on all technical and standardisation matters within DVB, represents the organisation around the world at conferences and tradeshows and supports DVB’s modules and working groups.

Biography:

Susi Elkins is director of broadcasting and general manager of WKAR Public Media at Michigan State University. WKAR is home to public radio and television for the Michigan capital region, bringing the best of PBS, PBS Kids, NPR, Classical music and award-winning original content to more than 500,000 mid-Michigan residents each week.

Under Elkins’ leadership, WKAR has increased its commitment to early childhood education through the launch of the PBS Kids 24/7 channel, WKAR Family original content and the PBS KIDS Playtime Pad research collaborative. Elkins also led the launch of a new WKAR News/Talk FM station for the capital region and strengthened local news coverage with an emphasis on education and public affairs reporting.

In collaboration with MSU, Elkins led the effort to launch the first ATSC 3.0 experimental station licensed to a public media organization. Granted the FCC experimental license in June 2018, WKAR then launched the Next Gen Media Innovation Lab to accelerate development of public service applications and NextGen business services for public broadcasters.

Elkins currently serves on the PBS Board, the board of America’s Public Television Stations (APTS), and the University Licensee Association Executive Council (ULA). Prior to her appointment in March 2017, Elkins served in a variety of roles at the station, including interim director, television station manager, content and community engagement manager, public television producer and instructional television multi-media producer.

Elkins holds a bachelor’s degree in telecommunication and a master’s degree in educational technology, both from MSU.

Biography:

Kerry Oslund is vice president of strategy and business development for The E.W. Scripps Company, where he is responsible for advancing the company’s ATSC 3.0 strategy and other business development efforts. Prior to his post at Scripps, Oslund was vice president of strategy and business development at Tribune, where he helped the company align business strategies with emerging ATSC 3.0 television standards. He also spearheaded major next-generation television advertising initiatives including dynamic ad insertion and real-time TV analytics and helped Tribune launch a successful podcast network.
From 2009-2016, Oslund worked for Schurz Communications as senior vice president of publishing and digital, where he oversaw daily operations of TV, radio, print and cable businesses and led M&A strategy.

Oslund has held industry leadership roles at Gannett Broadcasting (now TEGNA), Lee Enterprises, Walt Disney Company, KCAL-TV and USA Today.
A six-time regional Emmy winner, he also is a director for Pearl TV and a founder of the TV Interface Practices (TIP) Initiative.