ETSI STQ Conference - Communications for All

Stable agenda of the ETSI STQ Conference. 

Day 1: Tuesday 13 May
 

 

09:00 - 10:30 SESSION 1: Welcome and Opening Session
Chaired by Scott Isabelle, ETSI STQ Chair, Amazon

Session Objectives: Overview of accessibility topics, relations to and impacts on standards.

• 09:00 Welcome Address
  Ultan Mulligan, ETSI Chief Standardization Services Officer (CSO)
  
  
• 09:05 Overview of ETSI TC STQ (ETSI Technical Committee Speech and multimedia Transmission Quality)
  Scott Isabelle, ETSI TC STQ Chair
  
  
• 09:15 Keynotes Panel Discussion, moderated by Scott Isabelle, featuring:
  • Lidia Best, European Federation of Hard of Hearing People (EFHOH)
  • Linda Kozma-Spytek, Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA)
  • Susanna Laurin, International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) / Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs (G3ict)
    
    

• 10:00 Use of Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants in Communication
  Matjaž Debevc, University of Maribor
  
  
• 10:20 Q&A 
  
  

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Coffee

11:00 - 12:30 - SESSION 2: Accessibility Part 1
Chaired by Jean-Yves Monfort, SC User Chair, AFUTT

Session Objectives: Role of User Information Systems (UIS) in improving Quality of Experience (QoE) and accessibility solutions for speech understanding.

• 11:00 UIS as a QoE Accelerator
  Scott Cadzow, C3L (Cadzow Communications Consulting Ltd)
  
  
• 11:20 Multi-modal Transport - Use Case for User Information Systems in Expanding Quality of Experience
  Bernard Dupré, ETSI STF679, AFUTT
  
  
• 11:40 Healthcare interactions - Use Case for User Information Systems in Expanding Quality of Experience
  Mauro Dragoni, ETSI STF679, Fondazione Bruno Kessler
  
  
• 12:00 Usability and Accessibility Solutions to Support Speech Understanding
  Matthias Schneider, ETSI TC HF (Human Factors) Vice Chair, Hillebrand Consulting GmbH, 
  
  
• 12:20 Q&A 
  
  

12:30 - 14:00 Networking Lunch

14:00 - 15:30  SESSION 3: Gender and inclusiveness
Chaired by Jan Reimes, ETSI TC STQ Vice Chair

Session Objectives: Exploring gender-related factors in speech transmission and perception, with insights from real-world applications and implications for design of future speech communication systems.

• 14:00 Using the “Nothing Without Us” Approach is Ensuring that No One is Left Behind
  Dino Zuppa, Accessibility Standards Canada
  
  
• 14:20 Gender-related Aspect of Transmitted Speech Quality in Modern Telecommunication Networks
  Jan Holub, mesaqin.com Ltd. / FEE CTU Prague
  
  
• 14:40 Speech, Technology and Gender Aspects - Taking Human Factors to the Next Level?
  Yann Kowalczuk, Czech Technical University in Prague - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
  
  
• 15:00 Gender Effects in Speech Perception: An ETSI TR 103 950-Based Analysis of Listening Quality and Perceptual Dimensions
  Wafaa Wardah, Technische Universität Berlin
  
  
• 15:20 Q&A
  
  

15:30 - 16:00 Networking Coffee

16:00 - 17:30  SESSION 4: Accessibility Part 2
Chaired by Jan Holub, mesaqin.com Ltd.

Session Objectives: Addressing the needs of individuals with hearing impairments and ensuring compliance with accessibility standards in emergency services and consumer devices.

• 16:00 Listening Needs for Children with Hearing Loss
  Min Roh, Sonova Communications AG
  
  
• 16:20 Requirements and Technologies for Complying with the European Accessibility Act for Accessible Emergency Services
  Thor Nielsen, nWise
  
  
• 16:40 Accessibility Aspects of Audio, Speech, and Video in Consumer Devices
  Scott Isabelle on behalf of Shadi Abou-Zahra, Amazon Devices and Services
  
  
• 17:00 Q&A
  
  

17:30 - 19:00 Networking Cocktail & End of Day 1

Day 2: Wednesday 14 May
 

 

09:00 - 10:30 SESSION 5: Quality
Chaired by Ralf Pabst, ETSI TC STQ Mobile Chair

Session Objectives: Some measures of quality in communication technologies, with a focus on accessibility.

• 09:00 Voice command for Cars - Trends and Challenges
  Francois Fischer, Huawei Technologies R&D
  
  
• 09:20 ETSI ISG F5G Standards: Services Quality Evaluation, Testing and Monitoring in Fixed Optical Network
  Marcus Brunner, ETSI ISG F5G
  
  
• 09:40 Interoperable Total Conversation - Enables Real-time Communication for All
  Gunnar Hellström,  ETSI STF 674, GHAccess
  
  
• 10:00 Simple Assessment of Video Quality for Sign Language and Lip-reading
  Gunnar Hellström, ETSI STF 674, GHAccess
  
  
• 10:20 Q&A
  
  

10:30 - 11:00 Networking Coffee 

11:00 - 12:30 SESSION 6: Speech Communication Standards
Chaired by Scott Isabelle, ETSI TC STQ Chair

Session Objectives: Considering accessibility in methods of evaluating speech communication systems.

• 11:00 How Meaningful are Existing Terminal Testing Standards in Times of AI and Changing User Behavior?
  Hans Wilhelm Gierlich, Communication, Speech, Audio
  
  
• 11:20 An Approach for Synthesizing Lombard Speech
  Magnus Schäfer, HEAD acoustics GmbH
  
  
• 11:40 Comparing Different Prediction Models for Perceived Listening Effort
  Jan Reimes, HEAD acoustics GmbH
  
  
• 12:00 Q&A
  
  

12:30 Closing Remarks 
Presented by Scott Isabelle, ETSI STQ Chair

13:00 End of ETSI STQ Conference

• Scott Isabelle, ETSI TC STQ Chair, Amazon
• Jan Reimes, ETSI TC STQ Vicechair, Head acoustics
• Joachim Pomy, ETSI TC STQ Vicechair, NETCHECK
• Ralf Pabst, ETSI TC STQ Mobile chair, Accenture
• Antoine Burckard, ETSI TC STQ Technical Officer
• Jean-Yves Monfort, SC User Chair, AFUTT
• Peter Pocta, University of Zilina
• Jan Holub, MESAQIN
• Pawel Trella, Intel
• Andre Schevciw, Qualcomm
• Jens Berger, Rhode-Schwarz

Lidia Best, European Federation of Hard of Hearing People ( EFHOH)
Lidia Best, CPACC, is the President of the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People ( EFHOH).
Lidia brings unique knowledge as an expert with lived experience, as a person who is hard of hearing and a cochlear implant user. Her work has specific focus on accessibility, raising standards, policy development, innovation, and empowerment of deaf and hard of hearing advocates.
Lidia has recently been appointed as the Head of G3ict Delegation to ITU-T, where she contributed to work on standards in telecoms relay services , captioning and assistive listening devices.
She is the editor of the ITU FSTP-RCSO “Overview of remote captioning services” and H.871“Safety requirements for wearable audio augmenting devices” the recommendation on personal sound amplifiers. Most recently, she was involved in the development of the WHO-ITU Global Standard on Accessibility of Telehealth. Lidia is member of Smart Cities For All Committee for G3ict.
In addition, Lidia is an interim Chair of International Telecommunication Union Joint Coordination Activities on Accessibility and Human Factors ( ITU JCA-AHF).

Marcus Brunner, ETSI ISG F5G Vice-Chair, Huawei Technologies Switzerland
He received his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich in 1999. He is active in research, development, and standardization with detailed experience in a variety of fields (Optical, Broadband, Cloud, Mobile).
He is contributing to various international organizations on futurenetworking technologies including ETSI ISG F5G (Fifth Generation Fixed Networks Vice-Chair), ITU-T, and the World Broadband Association (WBBA WG chair). 

Scott Cadzow, C3L (Cadzow Communications Consulting Ltd)
Appointed as an ETSI Fellow in 2023 Scott has a number of years of experience in standardisation at ETSI. Whilst often focussing on security it is in the application of security across technologies that are the standout characteristic of his career. In domains including eHealth and ITS, in AI and in the integration of transparency and applicability in the use of security technologies, that ensure ETSI is able to address the societal role of security and privacy in ICT, Scott has along the way helped to provide guidance and standards to solve problems.
 

Matjaž Debevc University of Maribor
Dr. Matjaž Debevc, retired assoc. prof. in computer sciences is a researcher, lecturer, consultant and national expert to AccessibleEU in Slovenia. His areas of research and education are human-computer interaction, e-learning, visual communication, audio and video technology, and more recently the field of accessibility for persons with special needs. In the last time he worked on the revision of the ETSI EN 301 549 standard and now in ETSI STF working groups 674 and 680. He actively participated in more than 70, mainly European, projects. From 2010-2012 he also worked as an invited researcher in Switzerland, at the ETH Zurich and at Phonak, Stäfa. He has presented his research work in more than 100 scientific, professional and popular journals and at more than 300 scientific conferences, including as an invited lecturer. He is coordinator of the WFD expert group on accessibility and national expert in Slovenia to European Resource Centre on Accessibility - AccessibleEU.

Mauro Dragoni, ETSI STF679, Fondazione Bruno Kessler
Mauro Dragoni is a research scientist at Fondazione Bruno Kessler where he is the Head of the Intelligent Digital Agents research unit (IDA). His main research topics concern knowledge management, information retrieval, and machine learning by focusing on developing real-world prototypes as the outcome of his research activities. He has been involved in a number of international research projects at the national and international levels. He co-authored over 160 scientific publications in international journals, conferences, and workshops.

Bernard Dupré, AFUTT (French Telecom User Association)
Bernard Dupré is currently chair and expert for AFUTT, Association Française des UTilisateurs de Télécommunications, and the founder of the company Trajectoire Numérique. He is also teacher for the masters MSIR and ADE, at Telecom ParisTech.
He graduated from TelecomSud Paris and Institut Supérieur du Marketing. His wide professional experiences, alternately on the side of suppliers and consumers give him a hight quality of market analysis :
He started his carreer at the Home Office, in charge of civil security radiocommunication resources, and made the specification of a digital warning system for firefighters.
He pursued his career at Alcatel as product manager for professional digital radio systems. Then at RATP, where he first studied the underground radio coverage for PMR and GSM.Bernard then took the function of marketing research and innovation delegate, where he experimented an urban mobility assistant.

Francois Fischer, Huawei Technologies R&D
Mr Francois Fischer holds a Master of Engineering in Electrotechnics and informatics. He worked 6 Years as developer at Siemens Germany for Multiprotocol’s telecommunications systems. He then worked in ETSI specialist Task forces for supporting development of ETSI standards and organizing Open Plugtests events, including Cooperative ITS Plugtests. He worked 10 Years at ERTICO where he was coordinator of flagship Connected Automated Mobility H2020 project using IoT (AUTOPILOT) and 5G (5G-MOBIX). He joined Huawei standardisation and Industry department in 2020 as expert leader for Smart Travel product lines, addressing standardisation and regulation issues, as well as supporting research and innovation for strengthening Smartphones and applications to unlock innovation and safety for vehicle dashboards and autonomous mobility.

Hans W. Gierlich, Communication, Speech and Audio
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 GmbH in Aachen as vice president. From 1999 to 2014 he was head of the HEAD acoustics telecom division. From 2014 – 2023 he was 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 was active in ITU-T, ETSI, 3GPP, GCF, IEEE, TIA, CTIA, DKE and VDA. In ITU, he was chair of the ITU-T focus group CarCom. He was Rapporteur for various questions in ITU-T SG12. He was rapporteur for a variety of work items in ETSI, he was vice chair of ETSI technical committee STQ and was chair of STQ from 2016 – 2020.  He is author of more than 150 scientific papers and holds various patents. He is member of ASA, IEEE, VDE and DEGA where he was chair of the “Speech Communication” committee.

Gunnar Hellström, GHAccess
Gunnar Hellström is an accessible communications expert working in the company GHAccess in Sweden. Gunnar has worked more than 30 years in the area of accessible real-time multimedia communication. Gunnar has led and participated in numerous projects and service implementations providing real-time communication with video, real-time text and audio, together called total conversation, suitable for communication involving persons who have no or limited use of speech for communication. Gunnar has authored and contributed to a number of standards in this application area at all levels and in many standardisation bodies such as ETSI, ITU-T, 3GPP, IETF, ATIS and NENA. A relatively recent example is IETF RFC 9071 on multiparty mixing of real-time text in 2021. Current and recent work includes participation in STF projects in ETSI TC HF and EMTEL for authoring and updating four standards related to the European Accessibility Act, EAA.

Jan Holub, MESAQIN.com Ltd.
Jan Holub (Prof. Ing., Ph.D.) is the head of the Department of Measurement at FEL CTU in Prague. His professional interests include psychoacoustics, transmission quality measurement in telecommunication and radiocommunication networks, advanced signal processing methods, advanced detection and classification algorithms, methods of subjective testing and AI applications. He is the author of more than 150 conference papers, 40 articles in scientific journals, a number of international telecommunication standards and several European patents. In 1999, he established subjective test laboratory MESAQIN.com which deals primarily with speech, audio and multimedia subjective testing and is represented in ETSI STQ and 3GPP. 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), 3GPP SA4 EVS (2014) or 3GPP SA4 IVAS (2023, 2025).

Scott Isabelle, ETSI STQ Chair, Amazon
Dr. Isabelle received his degree in electrical engineering in 1982, then worked in military voice communications for five years. In 1994, he received his PhD in biomedical engineering, on binaural and spatial hearing. After a five-year fellowship at the US AFR laboratory researching spatial audio interfaces, he joined the central audio technology team of Motorola's Mobile division, working there for more than 10 years. While at Motorola, he directly participated in work on compatibility of mobile phones with hearing ends, with contributions to ANSI C63.19, the basis for FCC regulations. He also made technical contributions to ITU-T Study Group 12. In 2009, he joined Audience, working on microphone-array noise suppression technologies for mobile phones, working extensively in ITU-T SG-12, 3GPP SA4, ETSI STQ, and Bluetooth. In 2018, he joined Amazon’s Devices and Services Audio Technology team, where he evaluated hearing assistive technology. He continues to work in several standards organizations. 

Yann Kowalczuk, Czech Technical University in Prague - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Primary education in France until 2006. Following an Erasmus programme, graduated as engineer of Czech Technical University in Prague in 2010.
Professional pilot on transport airplanes, currently for a cargo operator in Germany. PhD student since 2020. Main interest in telecommunications and human factors, aviation, technology. 

Susanna Laurin, International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) EU
Susanna Laurin is Managing Director and Chair of the Funka Foundation, a Research and Innovation Center focusing on end user involvement, disabilities, empowerment and accessibility. As an internationally acknowledged expert in EU accessibility policy and regulations, she has been a thought leader in the field of digitalisation, inclusion and e-government for more than 20 years and she is a frequent international lecturer and debater.
Susanna is the Chair of the ETSI/CEN/CENELEC Joint Technical Body on eAccessibility, responsible for the development and update of the EN301549, to reflect presumed conformance of the Web Accessibility Directive and the upcoming European Accessibility Act. Susanna is a co-founder and Representative to the EU of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP), as well as the Representative to the EU for the UN-initiative G3ict.

Jean-Yves Monfort, ETSI Special Committee User Group Chair,AFUTT
30 years in France Telecom/Orange Labs (Lannion), as Manager of Laboratories in charge of QoE, QoS, Subjective testing, QoS as perceived by the user and responsible for standardization. Has been Chairman of ITU-T SG12 and ETSI TC STQ. As consultant (JYMCIS and AFUTT) has been involved in different ETSI STF (STQ, User Group and HF) and currently Chair of ETSI User Group. Since more than 10 years Co-Chairman of Association “Centre de découverte du Son”, a place dedicated to listening, sound ecology and sound environment education.

Ultan Mulligan, Chief Services Officer, ETSI
Mr. Ultan Mulligan is Chief Services Officer at ETSI, responsible for ETSI’s software and Open Source groups, testing and interoperability, preparation and publication of standards, and new tools and working methods.Previously Director of ETSI’s Centre for Testing and Interoperability, he led the team supporting ETSI technical committees on test specifications, PlugtestsTM interoperability events and use of formal specification methods. There, he oversaw the introduction of Software Development Groups at ETSI. Prior to that he held the positions of Director of Innovation and Director of Communications at ETSI and was also vice-chairman of the Marketing and Communications committee in the oneM2M Partnership Project – a collaboration on IoT standards between ETSI and 7 other ICT standards bodies across the globe. He was also responsible for Strategy and New Initiatives, establishing the first Industry Specification Groups at ETSI. Besides ETSI, he has participated in many standards bodies including oneM2M, 3GPP, ITU-T, CEN, and groups such as Bluetooth SIG and Parlay. Ultan Mulligan has a B. Eng. from Dublin City University and an Executive MBA from the ESCP-EAP in Paris.

Thor Nielsen, nWise
Since the early 2000s, Thor Nielsen has worked with Real-Time Text (RTT) and Total Conversation, pioneering solutions for accessible communication. In 2008, Thor founded a company specializing in carrier-grade technology for contact centers and emergency services, ensuring seamless connectivity for Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing individuals. He actively contributes to accessibility initiatives through multiple working groups at EENA and NENA, focusing on regulatory compliance and technological advancements. His work spans over 15 countries, collaborating with service providers, telecom operators, regulatory bodies, and user organizations to enhance accessibility in emergency and telecommunication services.

Jan Reimes, HEAD acoustics GmbH
Jan Reimes received his diploma degree in information and communication technology at RWTH Aachen University in 2006 and was then employed as a software engineer at HEAD acoustics GmbH. In 2016, he joined the newly founded department “Telecom Research & Standardization” and became team leader of “Standards & Applications” in 2023.
Jan Reimes published multiple scientific papers dealing with auditory and instrumental assessment of speech/audio quality and listening effort. In this domain, he also was significantly involved in the development of multiple standardized prediction models. Additionally, he worked on numerous technical contributions in standardization committees of ITU T, ETSI and 3GPP SA4, where he also acted as an editor of several technical specifications.
He was elected vice-chair of ETSI TC STQ in June 2022 and became a rapporteur for Q4 (automotive audio testing) and Q6 (test signals) in ITU-T Study Group 12 in September 2023.

Min Roh, Sonova Communications AG
Min obtained his Masters of Audiology at The University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2017.
He has held various roles in adult and pediatric audiology, tertiary education, professional bodies, and in industry, before joining as the Audiologist for Roger at Phonak HQ in 2024. 

Magnus Schäfer, HEAD acoustics GmbH
Magnus Schäfer joined HEAD acoustics GmbH 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. 

Matthias Schneider, ETSI Technical Committee Human Factors (TC HF) Vice Chair, Hillebrand Consulting Engineers
Matthias Schneider started his R&D work at the University of Stuttgart, Germany as a researcher and teacher in the area of user interface design. He was a team leader for research and development in the areas of software engineering and user interface design tool technology at Siemens Corporate Research, a visiting professor at the Center for Graphics, Usability and Visualization (GVU) of the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has been responsible for usability engineering and evaluation, user interface and manual design, and innovation in the area of UI design for Siemens communication devices. From July 1995 he served as a member of ETSI TC Human Factors on various project teams and Special Task Forces on usability and accessibility-related topics. He has been Chair of TC HF from October 2010 to October 2024. He was the Chair of the CEN/Cenelec/ETSI JWG on eAccessibility from its creation in 2013 until the beginning of 2022.

Wafaa Wardah, Technische Universität Berlin
Wafaa Wardah is a researcher in speech signal processing and machine learning, focusing on speech quality assessment and perceptual modeling. Originally from the Fiji Islands, she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science under the supervision of Prof. Sebastian Möller at the Quality and Usability Lab, TU Berlin. She is actively contributing to ITU-T work item P.SAMD as part of Question 9 on speech quality assessment.

Dino Zuppa, Accessibility Standards Canada
Dino Zuppa, Accessibility Standards Canada’s CEO, also oversees the development of equity-based accessibility standards supported by pioneering research funded by Accessibility Standards Canada’s grants and contributions program.
Dino’s career spans more than 25 years. He led a number of strategic initiatives at all orders of government in Canada, and at an American University. Dino holds a Ph.D. and lives in Ottawa with his wife and two kids.

Venue:

ETSI Headquarters
650 Route des Lucioles
06560 Valbonne - Sophia Antipolis
FRANCE

Tel: +33 4 92 94 42 00

Information on venue, travel, visa, local accommodation is available at www.etsi.org/events/find-us

Additional information to attendees: should you have accessibility needs, please contact us and we will do our best to accommodate them.