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Speakers
Rob Koenen
Co-Founder & CBO
AFFILIATION
Tiledmedia
Rob Koenen is a Co-Founder of Tiledmedia, the leading Multiview and VR streaming company, where he is responsible for business development as Tiledmedia’s Chief Business Officer. Mr. Koenen has held many leading roles in media standards and initiatives. He was co-founder and the first President of the VR Industry Forum, VRIF. Rob chaired MPEG's Requirements Group for 10 years, playing a key role in the development of MPEG-4 and in initiating and shaping MPEG-I. He is co-editor of the MPEG-4 Systems Standard. Rob founded the MPEG Industry Forum and served as its first President, bringing the ISO MPEG-4 specifications, including AVC, from paper documents to a dominant market force.
Mr. Koenen received his MSEE ('ingenieur') degree in 1989 from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands where he studied electrical engineering, specializing in information theory. Rob holds several patents in media processing, visual quality metrics and VR streaming.
Will Law
Chief Architect - Cloud Technology Group
AFFILIATION
Akamai Technologies
Will Law is Chief Architect within the Cloud Technology Group at Akamai and a leading media delivery technologist, involved with streaming media on the Internet for the last twenty years. Currently focusing on Media Over QUIC, WebTransport, low latency streaming, MPEG DASH, CMCD, CMSD and CAT, Law is Co-Chair of the W3C WebTransport Working Group and the CTA Common Media Client Data Working Group and past President of the DASH Industry Forum and Chairman of the CTA WAVE Project. He holds Masters degrees in Aerospace Engineering and an MBA and prior to Akamai worked for a series of engineering and media-related startups.
Christoph Neumann
Principal Engineer
AFFILIATION
Broadpeak
Christoph Neumann is principal engineer at Broadpeak, working on a variety of streaming related innovations and technologies: congestion control, security, streaming over 5G, machine learning on network and streaming related data. Prior to working at Broadpeak, Christoph worked in the research and innovation departments of InterDigital and Technicolor, where his main activities consisted in setting up and leading research projects in the field of networking, security, and distributed systems.
Eshed Ram
Video-algorithm Architect
AFFILIATION
NVIDIA
Eshed is a video-algorithm architect in NVIDIA, working mainly on video coding. He completed his BSc, MSc, and PhD at the Electrical & Computer Engineering faculty, Technion, specializing in Information Theory and Coding Theory, and his areas of interest span the intersection of math and algorithms, including image/signal processing, information theory, and machine learning.
Daniel Silhavy
Project Manager
AFFILIATION
Fraunhofer FOKUS
Daniel Silhavy is a scientist and project manager at the business unit Future Applications and Media (FAME) of the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS). He is the lead developer of the dash.js project and the development coordinator of the 5G-MAG Reference Tools. In addition, he co-chairs the SVTA Players and Playback Working Group.
His main area of expertise includes Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) Streaming focusing on MPEG-DASH, Digital Rights Management (DRM), 5G Media Streaming and video encoding.
Daniel is actively contributing to standardization work done in SVTA, DASH-IF, 5G-MAG and CTA-WAVE. Moreover, Daniel is giving lectures at the Technical University of Berlin and is supervising Bachelor and Master theses.
As part of his work on dash.js and the 5G-MAG Reference Tools, Daniel has developed in-depth knowledge in the field of media streaming and related specifications (ISO/IEC, 3GPP, DVB, CTA, DASH-IF) and technologies, software development, as well as web-based technologies and APIs such as HTML, JavaScript, node.js, MSE and EME.
Daniel has published various technical papers covering topics around ABR media delivery, 5G Broadcast, 5G Media Streaming and streaming analytics.
David Hassoun
David was the founder, visionary and leader of RealEyes for 18 years before being acquired by Dolby. Then at Dolby he was the Chief Technologist for the Dolby Cloud Solutions organization and helps connect business, product and technology teams to drive Dolby towards success in the media streaming space and is a co-chair of the Advertising working group for the SVTA. He has a track record of providing creative solutions to some of the industry's most challenging problems, understanding business requirements and limitations, and funneling all of that into actionable solutions that can be distributed and executed by his teams and our clients. David’s career started over 20 years ago and he also taught as an adjunct professor for grad and undergrad students for 10 years at the University of Denver. He is no stranger to large scale, high pressure streaming events: he’s worked with some of the biggest names in the industry to deliver thousands of live streaming events, including five Olympics, and three Super Bowls.
David Eisenbacher
CEO / Co-Founder
AFFILIATION
EZDRM
David Eisenbacher is the CEO and Co-Founder of EZDRM, the original DRM-as-a-Service company. Under his leadership, EZDRM has pioneered simple, scalable, and reliable solutions that empower content creators and distributors to protect and grow their revenue streams. With decades of experience, David has shaped EZDRM's mission to stay innovative and aligned with industry standards. His technical expertise and strategic vision have established EZDRM as a trusted global leader in delivering cutting-edge DRM solutions.
Keith Chow
Senior Product Manager
AFFILIATION
Network Infrastructure / IP Networks, Nokia
Keith is an experienced professional in IP networks and video, currently serving as a Senior Product Manager at Nokia within the Network Infrastructure, IP Networks division. With over 30 years of global experience, including 20+ years at Nokia, Keith has also contributed to companies such as Pace Microtechnology (now CommScope), Schneider Electric, and Olivetti. His focus areas include telecommunications, IP and digital video, IP networks, and engineering. His expertise spans IP and video technologies, as well as the development and delivery of video product solutions.
Keith specializes in transforming innovative ideas into practical, sustainable technologies and business solutions.
Thierry Fautier
Strategic Advisor
AFFILIATION
VisualOn
Thierry Fautier is the Managing Director of "You Media Transformation," a consulting firm focused on aiding executives in the Media & Entertainment tech industry with strategic growth in new markets and enhanced efficiency in existing ones. Leveraging his extensive expertise in both technology and market strategy, Fautier previously led over $400M in revenue at Harmonic and authored over 30 conference papers. His firm, "You Media Transformation," addresses key industry challenges such as streaming optimization, next-generation codecs, FAST (Free Ad-supported Streaming TV), CDN 2.0, AI-driven remastering, and AI applications in video delivery.
Fautier’s 25-year tenure in Silicon Valley has given him unique insights into scaling Media & Entertainment technologies across various markets and geographies. He also founded the Ultra HD Forum, which has significantly advanced UHD standards for broadcasters and OTT platforms. At Harmonic, he spearheaded innovative projects in IPTV, OTT, and UHD, and was instrumental in the team that won a 2020 Technology and Engineering Emmy® Award for AI in real-time video compression. Recognized by TVB Europe as one of the top media professionals to watch in 2021, Fautier is also an influential LinkedIn blogger, amassing 1 million views over the past year.
Mathieu Planche
Chief Executive Officer
AFFILIATION
Witbe
Since starting at Witbe in 2011, Mathieu Planche has worked in several key positions, including Deputy CEO of Products. Prior to that, as Chief Experience Officer, he oversaw product design and marketing to improve Witbe's user experience. Now, as Chief Executive Officer of Witbe, Mathieu continues to solidify Witbe's position as the Quality of Experience industry leader. Under his management, Witbe products have reached an enterprise-level grade, meeting the complex requirements of the world's most influential companies and their monitoring needs.
Julien Le Tanou
Video Technology Expert / Head of Video Research
AFFILIATION
MediaKind
Julien Le Tanou is a video technology expert and head of Video Research at MediaKind. In this role, he is responsible for leading research, innovation and software development into video processing, compression, delivery and associated encoding technologies. He held similar R&D roles at Ericsson following the acquisition of Envivio in 2015. Since 2012, he was with Envivio in charge of research and algorithms design for Envivio's SW video encoding solutions. Prior to Envivio, he was with Orange Labs in France and Dolby Laboratories in USA, where he conducted research and development for next generation of video coding standards. He received a MS degree in Signal and Image Processing from Telecom Paris, France in 2010, and a MSc degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Institut Superieure d’Electronique de Paris, France in 2008.
Dhananjay Lal (DJ)
Vice President, Advanced R&D
AFFILIATION
Adeia Inc.
As Vice President of Advanced R&D at Adeia, DJ drives strategic roadmap development and cutting-edge R&D initiatives in emerging media technologies. Previously, as Senior Director of Emerging Tech at Charter Communications, DJ provided strategic leadership for service delivery innovations, including Gaming, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality. DJ’s career spans roles in R&D, product management, and development at organizations such as Time Warner Cable, Bosch Research, Eaton, and Emerson. He holds a Bachelors degree in ECE from IIT, India, a Ph.D. in CSE from the University of Cincinnati, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. From 2019-2022, DJ served as a board member and chair of the Network Architecture Workgroup at the Immersive Digital Experiences Alliance (IDEA), helping develop open specifications for volumetric and light-field media. He holds more than 25 patents in the media technology space.
Abhijay Ghildyal
Final-year Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science
AFFILIATION
Portland State University
Abhijay Ghildyal is a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Portland State University, specializing in low-level computer vision and deep learning under the guidance of Dr. Feng Liu. His research focuses on perceptual similarity, video frame interpolation, and machine learning safety. He previously interned at Amazon, working on denoising NeRF-generated images, and is currently a Machine Learning Researcher on a co-op at Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation). Abhijay's interests include image and video quality assessment for traditional and gaming applications, novel view synthesis, and, more recently, Foundation Models. He is an active reviewer and regularly publishes in top-tier academic conferences and journals, such as ECCV.
Ali Begen
Founder
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AFFILIATION
Networked Media
Ali C. Begen is a computer science professor at Ozyegin University in Istanbul and the founder of Networked Media, a technology consulting firm specializing in IP video. Through his consultancy, he provides expert services to media-tech companies and law firms. Previously, he was a technical lead at Cisco in San Jose, California. Begen earned his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2006. Throughout his career, he has been recognized with numerous academic and industry accolades, including an Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering. He is a Streaming Video Technology Alliance (SVTA) Fellow. He holds over 40 US patents and is a Senior Member of both the IEEE and ACM. More details are at https://ali.begen.net.
Loic Strus
Video Expert & Manager of the Video Algorithm​
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AFFILIATION
Allegro DVT
Loic Strus has a 20-year of experience in the field of video processing and compression. He received the M.S. degree in Computer Science and the Ph.D degree from the University Joseph Fourier of Grenoble in 2005 and 2008 respectively. His thesis research was about real time control of a video encoder. He joined Allegro DVT in 2009 in the video broadcast team especially in the video quality team and worked on the software algorithm used in H264 and H265. He joined the IP team in 2015 to develop models and algorithms for different encoding and decoding IPs. He is currently working as a Video Expert and he is the Manager of the Video Algorithm team at Allegro DVT in Grenoble. His main research interests are in the field of Video Compression and Deep learning around Video codec.
Hojat Yeganeh
Senior Manager​
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AFFILIATION
IMAX Labs
Hojat Yeganeh received his PhD from the University of Waterloo, Canada, in 2014. Following his graduation, he joined SSIMWAVE, where he played a pivotal role in advancing perceptual video quality assessment. After SSIMWAVE's acquisition, he became a Senior Manager at IMAX Labs, leading innovative research in video technology. He has tackled a diverse range of challenges in the video industry, including HDR video quality assessment, tone-mapped video quality assessment, banding detection, video enhancement by doing smart dithering, no-reference quality metrics, HDR-to-SDR and SDR-to-HDR workflows, film grain similarity measurement and synthesis, and frame rate conversion. His contributions to the perceptual video quality assessment field earned him an Emmy Award, recognizing his impact on the industry. Hojat has also published numerous research papers and holds dozens of patents.
Martin Pettersson
Master Researcher ​
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AFFILIATION
Ericsson AB
Martin Pettersson received the M.Sc. degree in information and communications technologies from Lund University in 2005. He has since then been with Ericsson AB, currently as a Master Researcher within the visual technology team. His research interests include video compression and signalling, immersive video and video quality assessment. He has been an active contributor in the development of VVC, HEVC and VSEI and to several MPEG systems standards
Daniel Sedlak
Performance Engineer​
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AFFILIATION
CDN77 & Faculty of Information Technology,
CzechTechnical University in Prague
I am a PhD student at the Czech Technical University in Prague, where my main research topic is improving content delivery. Additionally, I work as a Performance Engineer at the CDN77, where my
job is to address all performance-related issues ranging from debugging kernel drivers to improving the caching capabilities of the CDN.
Christopher Bird
Cloud Software Development Engineer​
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AFFILIATION
Intel
Christopher Bird, Cloud Software Development Engineer at Intel works at identifying and fixing CPU performance issues in a variety of workloads run on server for bare metal and cloud deployments. He has been working with partners across the video industry with a mind to understand and improve the way video encoding technologies are applied in software. He is passionate about AI and its capabilities in the media domain. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Brigham Young University, USA.
Piers O’Hanlon
Senior Research & Development Engineer​
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AFFILIATION
BBC R&D
Piers O’Hanlon currently works at BBC R&D on Low Latency media delivery and associated standards, protocols, and implementations. Previously he was at the University of Oxford where he worked on IoT and mobile (4/5G) privacy and security. At UCL he was involved with media transport, IPv6, large-scale conferencing applications, grid systems, and network congestion control. He has also consulted for a number of companies and startups, where he developed bespoke systems and apps. He has been involved in various standards bodies (IETF, W3C, CTA-WAVE, ITU).
Dr. Xiaodong Wu
Principal Engineer​
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AFFILIATION
Adeia
Dr. Xiaodong Wu is a principal engineer at Adeia. He holds a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering. He is experienced in VLSI chip development for several famous companies, developed many codec and DSP chips, including the smallest video decoder. He is interested in video and audio processing, especially codec, standards, and IPRs issues.
Leto Baxevanaki
Engineering Manager​
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AFFILIATION
Bitmovin
Leto Baxevanaki is an experienced Engineering Manager with over 23 years in the ICT sector, specializing in software engineering, systems design, people’ management, leadership and strategic thinking. Currently at Bitmovin, she leads engineering teams in building high-performance video streaming solutions. With a strong background in software architecture, agile project management and leadership, Leto has contributed to innovative projects across media, cloud services, home and guarded communities automation solutions. She holds an MSc in Data Communications, Networks, and Distributed Systems from University College London and an Executive MBA from the Athens University of Economics and Business. Currently attending the DMBA course by CTO Academy.
Daniele Lorenzi
Ph.D. candidate​
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AFFILIATION
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt
& Christian Doppler Laboratory ATHENA
Daniele Lorenzi earned his M.Sc. in ICT for Internet and Multimedia Engineering from the University of Padua, Italy, in 2021. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC) at Alpen-Adria-Universität (AAU) Klagenfurt, where he conducts research within the Christian Doppler Laboratory ATHENA. His work focuses on cutting-edge advancements in adaptive video streaming, multimedia networking, immersive media, machine learning, green streaming, and QoS/QoE evaluation. His research aims to enhance the performance, sustainability, and user experience of next-generation multimedia systems.
David Ronca
Senior Video Research Scientist​
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AFFILIATION
Meta
David Ronca has more than 30 years of multimedia experience. He spent 11 years at Netflix where led the Encoding Technologies team and pioneered encoding innovations such as map-reduce and complexity-based encoding, VMAF, and global subtitle standardization (IMSC 1.1). For the last 5 years, he has worked at Meta, first as the Director of Video Processing, and currently as a Senior Video Research Scientist. In this role, he has worked to scale high-quality VOD experience to 3.5 billion users around the world. David's work has resulted in the awarding of 4 technical Emmys to Netflix, and 1 technical Emmy to Meta, and 23 patents.
Vladimir Zivkovic
Principal System Architect​
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AFFILIATION
Irdeto
Vladimir Zivkovic is Principal System Architect at Irdeto. After positions in research with the universities of Nis in Serbia and Leiden in the Netherlands as well as with Philips Research in The Netherlands, Vladimir joined Irdeto in 2004. His initial focus was embedded software. Shortly interrupted by being employed by IBM Tivoli Software, Vladimir returned to Irdeto in 2009 as a System Architect. His involvements include Cryptography & Security, Traitor Tracing, Ad Insertion and Watermarking. Next to being the lead architect for Irdeto’s forensic watermarking solution, Vladimir is also the Video Entertainment Innovation & Applied Research Lead at Irdeto and holds a PhD in Computer Science.
Ronald Peters
Senior Product Manager​
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AFFILIATION
Irdeto
Ronald Peters is Senior Product Manager at Irdeto. After positions in engineering, project management and product management with the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory, Arcadis, Nokia, Samsung and the Vodafone-Ziggo joint venture in The Netherlands, Ronald joined Irdeto in 2018. Starting as a Segment Lead for Content Protection, followed by the Product Lead for Conditional Access, Ronald runs Product Management for Irdeto’s TraceMark™ forensic watermarking portfolio since the start of 2021. Ronald holds a master’s degree in Electronic Engineering.
Lucas Gregory
Research and Innovation Engineer​
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AFFILIATION
Ateme (France)
Graduated in 2017 with a master's degree in image and sound systems engineering from INSA Hauts de France (Valenciennes). Currently a member of Ateme's Innovation team, he specializes in issues related to transport and systems, contributing his expertise to cutting-edge projects.
Jan De Cock
Director of Codec Development​
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AFFILIATION
Synamedia Video Network
Jan leads the compression team at Synamedia and is responsible for the company’s codec development operations. Having spent his entire career in the compression space, most recently as Manager of Video and Image Encoding at Netflix, Jan is one of the industry's foremost encoding experts. Prior to his role at Netflix, Jan was Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronics and Information Systems at Ghent University in Belgium.
Jan holds a PhD in Engineering from Ghent University in Belgium. He was general co-chair of the 2018 Picture Coding Symposium (PCS), co-organizer of the 1st AOMedia Research Symposium in 2019, and has been a presenter and speaker at a wide range of international conferences.
Burak Kara
Associate Software Architect​
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AFFILIATION
Synamedia Video Network
Burak joined Synamedia in 2023 as an Associate Software Architect, focusing on multi-CDN delivery, content steering, and green video distribution. He is also completing a Ph.D. at Inria, with research into sustainable video streaming. With over four years of experience in video streaming technologies, Burak has coauthored multiple patents, journal articles, and conference papers. He is also involved in industry standards organisations and sustainability initiatives.
Gwendal Simon
CDN Architect​
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AFFILIATION
Synamedia Video Network
Dr. Gwendal Simon is a Distinguished Architect at Synamedia, leading innovation in edge delivery and CDN technologies. Prior to joining Synamedia in 2021, Gwendal led a team of researchers in network measurement for Huawei and was a professor at IMT Atlantique, after completing his PhD in computer science in 2005. His research work took him to Canada’s University of Waterloo and Adobe Research in San Jose. With over 20 years of experience, he has authored 100+ publications, holds 15 patents, and contributed to global standards at MPEG and IETF. He also chairs the Network and Transport working group at the SVTA and has led major conferences like ACM MMSys 2022. Recognized with multiple Best Paper Awards and the Chevalier des Palmes Académiques, Dr. Simon’s work bridges cutting-edge research and impactful industry solutions.
Cise Midoglu
Developer and Researcher​
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AFFILIATION
Forzasys
Cise Midoglu is a developer and researcher at Forzasys. She received her B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, M.Sc. degree in Information Technology from the University of Stuttgart, and PhD degree in Informatics from the University of Oslo. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Holistic Systems (HOST), which focuses on distributed multimedia systems and content analysis, QoE, and automated end-to-end delivery pipelines for sports and medical applications, at the Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering (SimulaMet) until 2024, where she continues to supervise students. Her research interests include performance measurements in broadband networks, OTT streaming analytics, AI/ML for multimedia systems and sports multimedia, data science, and crowdsourcing.
Lisa Guess
SVP, Global Solutions Engineering​
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AFFILIATION
Ericsson
Lisa Guess is currently the Senior Vice President of Global Sales Engineering at Ericsson leading the enterprise sales engineering team and driving innovative customer solution development for next generation enterprise networks. Lisa has been a member of the FCC Technical Advisory Committee since 2015 and is a co-chair of the FCC’s Artificial Intelligence working group.
Prior to Ericsson/Cradlepoint, Lisa was VP of Systems Engineering at Juniper Networks, providing leadership and driving the technology vision for the Enterprise and Service Provider sectors.