Workshop on Multimedia Quality in Virtual, Augmented or other Realities

Day 1: 10 May 2017

Day 2: 11 May 2017

Day 2: 11 May 2017

Martin Adolph, ITU-T
Martin Adolph is a Study Group Advisor with ITU, the United Nation’s specialized agency for information and communications technologies. Working in ITU’s standardization bureau, he is responsible for ITU-T Study Group 12 on performance, quality of service, and quality of experience. In addition, he is coordinating ITU activities on connected vehicles and organizing ITU’s annual Symposium on The Future Networked Car at Geneva Motor Show. Martin holds diplomas in Computer Science from Dresden University of Technology, and Engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris. He speaks English, French and German.

Johannes Abel, Institute for Communications Technology Technische Universität Braunschweig
Johannes Abel received the M.Sc. degree in computer and communications systems engineering from Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany. During his studies, he worked as a student assistant in the field of speech enhancement and wrote his master thesis at the Institute for Communications Technology on artificial bandwidth extension for automatic speech recognition. In 2013, he started working towards his Ph.D. degree in the field of artificial bandwidth extension for telephony applications. His research interests include speech enhancement, machine learning, and automatic speech recognition.

Hakob Avetisyan, Czech Technical University of Prague
Hakob Avetisyan received his MSc degree in communication systems from the State Engineering University of Armenia (currently National Polytechnic University of Armenia) in 2014. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree at the Department of Measurement, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague.

Wolfgang Balzer, Focus Infocom GmbH
Wolfgang Balzer studied Physics with emphasis on Laser Physics and Nonlinear Dynamics in Darmstadt, followed by an Assistant professor position during doctorate study. He then spent a one-year post-doctorate at the Mitsubishi Electric central research lab in Osaka, working on optical implementation of neural networks. In 1990, he co-founded Focus Optik, specializing in industrial measurement technologies; in 1993, he co-founded the follow-up company Focus Infocom where he works as Managing Director to date.
After heading the software development for several years, his role today is business development which also includes innovation and key project management.
In standardization, Dr. Balzer started in the GSMA IREG group which later transformed into ETSI STQ MOBILE. With expansion of these activities, they include as of today work in TC INT and STQ as well as, currently, work in the ITU-T Focus Group for Digital Services and follow-up structures.

Aron Cserkaszky, Holografika Ltd
Aron Cserkaszky received his M.Sc. degree in nuclear physics from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary in 2011. He is currently a researcher and senior software engineer at Holografika Ltd. His current research focus is camera image interpolation and volumetric rendering of medical data for lightfield 3D displays. He is writing his doctoral thesis at Pazmany Peter Catholic University titled "Measuring and reconstructing real and virtual lightfields". He previously worked on Monte Carlo photon simulations on GPUs and novel image reconstruction algorithms of PET and SPECT systems.

Hans Wilhelm Gierlich, Chairman of ETSI TC STQ, HEAD acoustics GmbH
Dr.-Ing. H. W. Gierlich started his professional career in 1983 at the Institute for Communication Engineering at RWTH, Aachen. In 1988 February he received a Ph. D. in electrical engineering. In 1989 he joined HEAD acoustics Inc. in Aachen as vice president. Since 1999 he is head of the HEAD acoustics telecom division. Since 2014 he is managing director at HEAD acoustics.
He is mainly involved in acoustics, speech signal processing and its perceptual effects, QOS & QOE topics, measurement technology and speech transmission quality. He is active in ITU-T, ETSI, 3GPP, GCF, IEEE, TIA, CTIA, DKE and VDA and chair of the ETSI technical committee STQ and was chair of the ITU-T focus group CarCom. He is Rapporteur for various questions in ITU-T SG12.
He is author of more than 150 scientific papers and holds five patents. He is member of ASA, IEEE, VDE and DEGA where he was chair of the “Speech Communication” committee.

Lin Han, Huawei R&D
Principal Engineer of Huawei R&D in USA. Over 20 years’ experience in research, development, design and architecture positions in universities and industry including Southeast University (China), University of Toronto, Newbridge, Cisco. Career began with electronics research, then entered into telcom industry to build TDM/ATM switch, then moved into IP network and product area. Rich experience in data communication, IP routing protocols and other control protocols, IP forwarding and MPLS switching. Joined Huawei R&D in USA since 2011. Worked in projects related to SDN, NFV, DC networking. Currently exploring leading-edge technologies for future network. Holding more than 10 US patents.

Jan Holub, Mesaqin.com sro. (Ltd.)
Prof. Ing. Jan Holub, Ph.D. is Head of Department of Measurement, FEE CTU Prague. He graduated from the Czech Technical University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering in 1996. After defending his PhD thesis in 1999 he started to work as an assistant professor there. In 2004 he become associate professor (New Methods for Objective Voice Transmission Quality Measurements and Their Applications) and in 2016 full professor. His research interests and activities cover AD and DA converters, digital signal processing, psychoacoustics and measurements in telecommunication networks. He was awarded several patents and published more than 30 articles in scientific magazines and 110 contributions for conferences (82% international). In 1999 he established MESAQIN.com Ltd., MESAQIN.com deals primarily with speech, audio and multimedia subjective testing. Since the company establishment in 1999, MESAQIN.com has been involved in various standardisation projects including ETSI EG 202 396-2 (2006), ITU-T SG12 P.863 (2010), ETSI TR 103 121 (2013) or 3GPP SA4 EVS (2014), collecting multiple millions of subjective votes in total.

Scott Isabelle, Vice-Chairman of ETSI TC STQ, Knowles Electronics
Dr. Scott Isabelle studied electrical engineering at MIT (US) and biomedical engineering at Boston University (USA) where he received a Ph. D. focusing on binaural hearing.  After post-doctoral research on spatial hearing and intelligibility at the Air Force Research Lab (US), he joined Motorola leading activities in applying psychoacoustics to speech enhancement algorithm development, and participating in standardization work in hearing aid compatibility (ANSI ASC C63).  He joined Knowles in 2009 continuing his work on applied psychoacoustics and participating in standardization related to speech quality in IEEE, CTIA, ITU-T, and ETSI.

Péter András Kara, WMN Research Group, Kingston University, London
Péter András Kara received his M.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from the Department of Networked Systems and Services, at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, in Hungary. He participated in the CONCERTO (Content and cOntext aware delivery for iNteraCtive multimedia healthcaRe applications) project of the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme, and currently he is a fellow of the QoE-Net (innovative Quality Of Experience maNagement in Emerging mulTimedia services) EU H2020 project. He is a research associate at the Wireless Multimedia and Networking Research Group of Kingston University, in London. His research topics include the quality of streaming multimedia, cognitive bias in experiments and 3D visualization on emerging technologies, such as light field displays.

Toktam Mahmoodi, King's College of London
Dr Toktam Mahmoodi is with the academic faculty of the Centre for Telecommunications Research (CTR) in King’s College London. She is one of the leading members of the Tactile Internet Lab at King’s College London and principal and co-investigator of number of research projects funded by telecom industries, UK Research Councils and European Commission, on subjects such as low-latency communications, SDN and NFV, and eHealth. Among others, Toktam has a leading role in EPSRC INITIATE, H2020 VirtuWind, and MRC InDEx projects. Prior to her current position, Toktam was visiting research scientist at F5 Networks, research associate in Imperial College London, researcher in Mobile VCE Core 4, and R&D engineer in telecommunication industry. She is a member of the ACM and a Senior member of the IEEE.

Joachim Pomy, Vice-Chairman of ETSI TC STQ, Mesaqin.com s.r.o (Ltd.)
Joachim received his Diploma in Communications Engineering from Darmstadt Technical University in 1984. The same year he joined Telefonbau & Normalzeit in Frankfurt where he became responsible for PABX transmission planning, and approval, for mouth-to-ear voice quality and for perceptual evaluation of users' satisfaction.
Since 1988 he is actively involved in related standardization efforts in ITU-T, ETSI, MESAQIN, BITKOM, TIA, T1A1 and IEEE. In 2002 Joachim was awarded the ETSI internal Service Medal for his achievements with the Asia-Pacific-Telecommunity (APT).
In 2008 Joachim left his position in Frankfurt and started to work as a Freelance Consultant in Telecommunications & International Standards. He completed successfully ITU projects on QoS in Nepal, the Maldives and for Afghanistan; he gave QoS/QoE workshop presentations e.g. in Spain, Kenya, the Maldives, Lebanon, South-Korea and Ghana.
Joachim lead an ETSI project on Adaptation of the ETSI QoS Model to better consider results from field testing. Joachim has taken responsibility and leadership in ETSI STQ and ITU-T SG12 for more than one decade.
Together with researchers from OPTICOM, Swissqual and TNO he supported actively the standardization of P.863 (POLQA, Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Assessment) as the appointed editor of P.863 and P.863.1 including their the recent revisions.
For the African Regional Group in ITU-T SG12 Joachim has edited the new Recommendation E.804 on Mobile QoS and a new Supplement for Regulatory Aspects of QoS.
Joachim is vice chair of ETSI STQ and (co-) rapporteur for multiple areas in ITU and ETSI; he is also the (co-) author of more than 150 contributions to ITU, ETSI and TIA.

Jan Reimes, HEAD acoustics GmbH
Jan Reimes, born in 1980 in Aachen, started his academic studies of electrical engineering at RWTH Aachen, Germany in 2000. In 2006, he received his diploma degree in information and communication technology with final thesis at the Institute of Communication Systems and Data Processing. From 2006 to 2015, he was employed at HEAD acoustics GmbH for the Telecom development department. In 2016, he joined the newly founded department “Telecom Research & Standardization”.
Jan Reimes was significantly involved in the technical development of assessment algorithms ETSI EG 202 396-3 (2007) and its successor ETSI TS 103 106 (2012). He also published multiple scientific papers dealing with the instrumental assessment of speech and audio quality. Additionally, he collaborated on several technical contributions for standardization groups in ITU-T, ETSI and 3GPP.
His fields of interest and research are in acoustic measurement technology, intelligibility of transmitted speech in noisy scenarios, analysis of conversational aspects (echo/double talk), loudness assessment, auditory tests and in general, speech and audio quality evaluations of all kind.

Carmine Rizzo, ETSI
Dr. Carmine Rizzo has worked in the ETSI Secretariat in France since November 2007, where he is responsible for the co-ordination and support of various ETSI and 3GPP Technical Committees. He obtained a Master Degree in Electronic/Telecommunication Engineering in Italy, followed by a Ph.D. in Radio Communications in the United Kingdom. His professional background in the United Kingdom includes experience in the private sector for Nortel Networks as Data Communications Network Engineer, and over five years' experience in the international organization ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts), working in an operational environment for the support and management of IT projects, services and security.

Jérôme Royan, b<>com
Dr. Jérôme Royan received an Engineer Degree in Computer Science from the National Institut of Applied Sciences of Rennes, France, in 2001, as well as a Master of research Degree in Computer Science from the University of Rennes in 2001. He received a Ph.D. Degree in Computer Science from the University of Rennes in 2005. During his Ph.D. studies, he was a R&D Engineer at Orange Labs (Rennes France) position that he holds until 2013. In august 2013, he entered b<>com as Lab Manager on Immersive Interaction to finally become in 2016 Principal Architect and Principal Scientist on Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies.  His main research interests include 3D streaming, P2P architectures for virtual environments, procedural modelling, 3D formats interoperability, interaction with 3D graphic interfaces, mixed reality for data visualization, and more recently computer vision and machine learning.

Magnus Schäfer, HEAD acoustics GmbH
Magnus Schäfer joined the Telecom division of HEAD acoustics GmbH as a researcher in 2016. His current focus is on spatial perception, instrumental quality evaluation of speech and audio signal processing systems and acoustic measurement technology. Before starting at HEAD acoustics, he was a senior researcher at the Institute of Communication Systems and Data Processing at RWTH Aachen University where he also received the Dr.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering in 2014. His main work there was in single and multi-channel speech and audio coding as well as speech enhancement.

Gerhard Schmidt, Kiel University
Gerhard Schmidt received the Dipl.-Ing. and Dr.-Ing. degrees from the University of Darmstadt, Germany, in 1996 and 2001, respectively. He was working in the research groups of the acoustic signal processing departments at Harman/Becker Automotive Systems, Ulm, Germany and SVOX, Ulm. Parallel to his time at SVOX, he was a part-time Professor with the University of Darmstadt. Since 2010, he has been a Full Professor with Kiel University, Germany. His main research interests include adaptive methods for audio and medical signal processing.

Steven Schmidt, Deutsche Telekom
Steven Schmidt received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering at the TU Berlin with a major in Communication Systems. Since 2016 he is employed as a research assistant at the Quality and Usability Lab (TU Berlin) where he is working towards a PhD in the field of Quality of Experience in Mobile Gaming. Besides others research activities, he started working on the development of methods for the assessment QoE of gaming in the P.GAME work program of Study Group 12 in the ITU-T Standardization Sector.

Fredrik Stenmark, Vice Chairman of ETSI TC STQ, QUALCOMM UK Ltd
Fredrik Stenmark graduated as a M.Sc. in Sound and Vibration in year 2000 under the Acoustics and Civil Engineering Department of Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Since graduating he has worked in the field of Telecom Engineering with integration of speech and multimedia components and solutions for international companies, the past 4 years for Qualcomm, Inc. The work has included Voice Quality and Component Quality engineering, as well as leading a team of Audio Design Lead engineers in handheld Device integration. More recently, his focus has been development of analog components for device and car implementation, objective prediction models for Speech quality and audio for virtual reality. In standardization, Fredrik Stenmark is active as Editor in ITU SG12, and Vice Chairman in ETSI STQ and CTIA CPWG Audio. He is the author of several Technical Specifications and holds 11 patents. He is a long-time member of AES.