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Joint ITU-R SG6 – EBU Workshop “Broadcasting in times of crisis - 2023” Geneva, Switzerland, 1400-1700 Hours (CET) on Thursday 9 March 2023 - Speaker's Bios

​​​Speakers Bios



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​Abdullah Alaraimi ​

Project Manager, DVB-T2 project in Oman

Dr. Abdullah Alaraimi was born in Muscat (Oman) in 1967, graduated from Sultan Qaboos University in 1991 and joined the Ministry of Information as a transmission engineer. ​​

Between 1999 - 2006 he started his graduate studies and got a Master and a PhD from Electro-Communication University, Tokyo (Japan) in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). 

He was appointed as Director of Frequency Planning Department and as Director of Projects Department. 

He is the Project Manager of DVB-T2 project in Oman. ​

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Jeanette Elsworth​​​

Chief of Communications​, Advocacy, Knowledge Management and ICT, UNDRR

Jeanette is a communications professional with more than 20 years' experience, including twelve years leading communications teams at the UN. She started her career in broadcast journalism at the BBC, where she worked on some of the UK’s best respected programmes, including the Today Programme, Moneybox and Crossing Continents on Radio 4, as well as From Our Own Correspondent on the World Service. Jeanette was responsible for posting one of the Radio 4’s first “podcasts” (MP4s of your radio programme on a webpage, anyone?) before realizing she wanted out of journalism and out of the UK. She head to her childhood home of Nairobi and spent two years in a policy role at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before joining UN-Habitat as their Press and Media lead.​

Jeanette is currently Chief of Communications, Advocacy, Knowledge Management and ICT and leads communications campaigns for the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, World Tsunami Awareness Day and the Early Warning For All Initiative alongside WMO. ​



Leilei Li​

Professor-level senior engineer,Academy of Broadcasting Planning, NRTA​

Leilei Li has worked in Academy of Broadcasting Planning, NRTA since 2009. His interest fields include frequency planning & coordination for digital terrestrial DTTV and wireless broadcasting technology. ​

As an experienced expert, he is responsible for frequency coordination with foreign experts, and has attended several international meetings for frequency planning and coordination in border areas. In addition, he also provides technical support work for NRTA on ITU-R and attended several international meetings, including SG6, JTG4-5-6-7, WRC-12, WRC-15 and WRC-19. ​

As the chairman spectrum topic area of ABU Technical Bureau, his responsibility is to follow developments of the related WRC Agenda items and evaluate the possible impact on broadcasting service in Asian-Pacific region. ​

He graduated with BSC (Eng) Hons specializing in Electrical Engineering from Communication University of China, MSC from Edinburgh University in UK, and PhD from Loughborough University in UK. ​

He has published a number of technical papers including IEEE transactions and won lots of awards of provincial level in China. ​

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Louis Libin​​

Vice President, Spectrum Engineering and Strategies, Sinclair Broadcast Group

Louis Libin is Vice President for Spectrum Engineering and Strategies at Sinclair Broadcast Group. Louis is responsible for spectrum issues and development and deployment of Single Frequency networks. Louis has extensive planning and operational experience in Broadcasting and Satellite as well as Special Event Planning, for event management, for public safety planning and for event operations. Louis remains active at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, a college at the Naval Postgraduate School, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Navy and FEMA. Louis is the ATSC 3.0 Rapporteur at the ITU, vice chair of ATSC PT6, chair of the International Outreach Group and vice chair of IT5 Tower Network Implementation Team.​

Louis Libin has received extensive training comprising over 30 courses and experience in law enforcement, FEMA and DHS. Louis received a citation from the White House Communications Agency (WACA), two citations from U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and one citation from the U.S. FBI. ​

Mr. Libin has worked internationally on wireless and communications development in many countries. Libin has provided workshops on equipment and technology to international regulatory agencies such as Ofcom in the UK and Industry Canada. Louis was Chief Technology Officer for NBC and was responsible for satellite, wireless and communication issues for General Electric and NBC. Libin was CTO for NBC and led all other GE divisions in wireless development and wireless and licensing and regulatory technologies. Libin designed and implemented wireless projects worldwide. Mr. Libin led many successful projects, including satellite systems, a cost effective, highly precise time and frequency standard used by communications networks. Libin led a team which developed optimized transmission of digital signals over the broadcast/satellite path.​

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Mirta Lourenço​

Chief for Media Development and Media in Emergency, UNESCO

Mirta Lourenço is Chief for Media Development and Media in Emergency at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 

She fosters media pluralism (particularly, community media), media diversity (equality in media for gender, youth, indigenous people and persons with disabilities) and media in crisis preparedness and response (media and migration, refugees, terrorism, climate change, epidemcs). 

Prior to UNESCO she held different positions handling communication strategies, for both private and non-profit sectors. 

She holds the DESS degree from La Sorbonne University in Social and Political Communication (Diplôme d’études supérieurs spécialisées en communication politique et sociale), a Master’s Degree and post-Master’s studies in Communication and Information from the University of Stockholm, and a Master’s degree from the University of Buenos Aires. 

She speaks five languages and has authored a number of articles.

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Roberto Moro​​ ​

Strategic Services Manager Broadcast, Technology Innovation and Projects, SRG SSR​

Roberto Moro is project leader WRC-23, member of EBU SP-Spectrum and EBU SP-Distribution. Roberto is responsible for the commercial and technical planning of the SRG SSR DAB+ platform. As an expert of the broadcast market and radio communications he contributes to Federal Office for Civil Protection and Swiss working groups on emergency warning and resilient broadcasting.​

For his speech at EBU ITU workshop he is representing the SRG SSR taskforce for “energy deficiency and blackout” as its co-leader. ​

Dedicated to a leading user experience, he is a pioneer of initiatives to improve DAB+ network planning, resilient broadcasting, tunnel broadcasting and receiver performance. ​

As an expert of broadcast and radio communications, he contributes on EBU, ITU, WorldDAB and national groups.​

Prior to this position, Roberto held different positions in the mobile telecommunication and PPDR industries.

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Ruxandra Obreja​ ​

DRM Consortium Chairman​​​
www.drm.org​

Ruxandra Obreja has been the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) Consortium Chairman since 2008, She is representing and enjoying the support of both Encompass Digital Media Services and the BBC on the Steering Board of the Consortium, a not-for-profit international organisation, with members on all continents.​

In the last few years Ruxandra has been deeply involved in the promotion of digital radio all over the world after a career spent at the BBC World Service where she worked as a journalist, editor (Romanian and European services), commissioner of World Service English programmes and as Head of business development, BBC WS. She is a former vice-chair of the EBU international broadcasters’ group (after 2005). She studied in Romania and UK, writing, presenting and producing for radio and TV in both countries.​

In March 2008 Ruxandra was first elected Chairman of the DRM Consortium with the avowed aim of ensuring that the various stakeholders work towards the same goal: the global and mass scale take up of the DRM standard and digital radio.​

Ruxandra was unanimously re-elected several times to this position, the last time in March 2022. ​

She frequently writes for the specialised press, makes presentations. She was presented with a prestigious Romanian award for her work in the media, with focus on digital radio.​

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Veit Olischläger​​

Head of Technology, Media Management and Public Relations, Bavarian regulatory authority for new media (BLM)​

Veit Olischläger has been Head of Technology, Media Management and Public Relations at the Bavarian regulatory authority for new media (BLM) since the beginning of 2020. 

His area of responsibility includes the technical development of radio and tv services in Bavaria as well as research, financial topics and support for local stations. 

Communicating broadcasting innovations to the press, experts and consumers was a focus of his previous business activities. In addition, he advised nationally and internationally on issues relating to the introduction and communication of new broadcasting technologies. 

From April 2015 to September 2017, Veit Olischläger headed the DVB-T2 HD Germany project office on behalf of ARD, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, Vaunet and ZDF. The key task was the coordination and communicative support of the switch from DVB-T to DVB-T2 in Germany.

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​Thomas Stockhammer​​​​

Qualcomm​

Dr. Thomas Stockhammer joined Qualcomm in 2014 and now acts as Senior Director Technical Standards. In his different roles, he coauthored more than 200 research publications, more than 200 patents and 1000s of standards contributions. He is the active and has leadership and rapporteur positions in 3GPP, DVB, MPEG, IETF, ATSC, CTA, ETSI, Metaverse Standards Forum and the DASH-Industry Forum in multimedia communication, TV-distribution, 5G broadcast, content delivery protocols, immersive media representation, adaptive streaming, XR and the Metaverse. 

Among others, he leads MPEG-I Scene Description efforts, DASH-IF Technical working group, 3GPP Video and XR activities as well as DVB-5G activities. 

He received several awards for work on DASH, media delivery and 5G Broadcast, namely the INCITS Technical Excellence Award 2013, the 3GPP Excellence award 2017, the CTA Technology & Standards Achievement Award 2019 and an Emmy Inventor Award for in 2022. 

He is regular speaker and Program Committee Member at events such as IBC, DVB World, Mile High Video, MWS or BroadThinking. ​In January 2023, he was elevated to IEEE Fellow for his contributions to media delivery and video streaming standards.​

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Yasutaka Suenaga​​​​

Engineer, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)

Yasutaka Suenaga joined the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in 2010. 

He has worked in the Engineering Administration Department since 2013 and is engaged in frequency coordination between broadcasting service and other services. 

He has sufficient experiences in digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB) network and broadcasting satellite operation.

He received B.E. and M.E. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology.​

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​Ferhat Uzaktaş​​

Deputy Transmitter Operations Director, TRT World​

Graduated from Yıldız Technical University-Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Mr. Uzaktaş started his career as an engineer at TRT’s Diyarbakir Office. There, he was involved in the planning and installation of the radio studios of Diyarbakir production center, where he worked as operating engineer for 8 years.​

And then, he was appointed a broadcast engineer and technical director to the Production Unit of TRT’s Ankara Office. ​

He worked as chief engineer and team-head in the master control room, continuity studios and satellite earth station for 5 years. Thereafter, he became the chief engineer in the Technical Planning and Coordination Department, where he dealt with the contracts and agreements regarding the overseas transmission of TRT broadcasts.​

In 2007, he was appointed chief engineer for surveying, planning and project designing to the Studios and Programme Transmission Systems Department. In his role as such, he carried out the planning and setup of various studios and OB Vans. ​

Then he was appointed as manager in charge of TRT’s technical facilities at same department. In 2015, he was appointed Deputy Head of IT Department. He was responsible for e-tv and e-radio applications in this depatment. ​​​

After 4 year working, he was appointed current position which is Deputy Transmitter Operations Director and responsible for planning of terrestrial radio and tv transmitters.