Sophia Antipolis, 18 April 2024
ETSI is pleased to unveil its 2024 ETSI Fellows who were announced at the 83rd ETSI General Assembly on 16 April 2024.
The Award Committee, composed of the GA Chair and Vice-Chairs, the Board Chair and the ETSI Director-General, unanimously named Dr. Howard Benn, Mr. Philippe Magneron, Dr. Matthias Schneider, Mrs. Isabelle Valet Harper and Mr. Dirk Weiler, as ETSI Fellows 2024 for their outstanding personal contributions to the organization.
Dr. Howard Benn, now retired, was a former VP at Samsung Electronics in United Kingdom. Over the past 32 years, he has been a major contributor to ETSI and 3GPP. From 1992 to 1998, he was a contributor to GSM radio specifications. This work paved the way for single-chip solutions that acted as catalysts in the mobile industry. Then in 1998, he helped to create the radio group in 3GPP, becoming convenor and then Chair, remaining in this position until 2007. He then attended the SA1, SA plenary and CT plenary groups, until 2023 as a contributor. Outside of meetings, he has supported academia with standards education. As part of his efforts to develop ETSI’s strategy and support ETSI’s operations, he joined the Board in 2008, a role that he continued until his retirement in 2023.
Philippe Magneron is a connected products standardization Manager at Hager Group in France. He has been a key member of the Short-Range Devices standards community since 2004, when he joined ETSI ERM/TG28, where he contributed to developing standards for SRDs used by millions of citizens in their daily routines. He has spent over 30 years of his career working in Private Mobile Radio, Short Range Devices communications, and is now expanding into Cyber Security for connected devices. He has been a passionate promoter of the SRD industry in both his direct contributions to ETSI’s work and in his championing of ETSI on a broader level. As rapporteur of the EN 300 220 standard series, Philippe has made an ETSI leading global standard for SRD / licence-exempt technologies, being cited across five continents.
Dr. Matthias Schneider is a HF standardization Expert at IP and Licensing Schneider in Germany. He is an active figure in R&D for human factors, accessibility, usability, and user interface design. He joined ETSI’s Human Factors Committee in 1995 and since 2010, he has been the Chair of this TC. The committee was responsible for developing the most important European Norm and standards supporting European Accessibility legislation. He has been the initiator of the development of the ETSI Accessibility Policy and has been instrumental in overseeing its adoption by ETSI. He is now focusing on the implementation of ETSI’s accessibility strategy and ensuring that ETSI will become a fully inclusive and accessible standardization organization.
Isabelle Valet-Harper, now retired, was a senior Standards Adviser at Microsoft, then a Standards Expert at CommLedge. She has more than 30 years of experience in Standardization, in a number of French, European and International organizations where she had various roles and responsibilities. She has been a regular participant at ETSI GAs since 1989 and was the Vice Chair from 2014 to 2018. She has also been a member of the ETSI Board since 2011. She was a member of several Review Groups and has taken on the roles of Board Champion or Ad-hoc Group Chair on multiple occasions. She also chaired the Board Process Group. Isabelle has been especially involved in matters of governance, making sure that ETSI Directives, including the Technical Working Procedures, are fit for the rapidly evolving purpose of serving a highly dynamic standard-setting organization.
Dirk Weiler, now retired, was a former Head of standards policy at Nokia in Germany. He is a firm believer in the power of standardization. He has been involved in standardization throughout his successful career in Siemens and Nokia. This spanned from contributing to technical work for GSM in ETSI in 1988 and leading Siemens Communication Standardization activities during the 1990s and up to 2006, including the creation of 3GPP, to guiding and leading standardization organizations and related industry bodies, enabling mobile communications and supporting the world’s most successful standardized eco-system. Within ETSI, Dirk has chaired the IPR Special Committee (2008–2018), the GA (2010–2014), and the Board (2014–2023). He was also a member of the CEN-CENELEC-ETSI Joint Presidents’ Group and the 3GPP PCG/OP delegation, and representative for the European Commission ICT Standardization MSP. Dirk is a renowned advocate for global, open, and consensus-based standardization with FRAND IPR policies, allowing for the incorporation of the most appropriate technologies.
More information at: https://www.etsi.org/membership/fellows.