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Biographies

Avinash Agarwal Deputy Director General, Telecommunication Engineering Centre, Dept. of Telecom, India Mr Avinash Agarwal is an Indian Telecom Service (ITS) Officer of the 1992 batch. He has almost 30 years of extensive experience in Telecommunications, Information Technology, and Broadcasting while serving in various positions in the Government of India. Presently, he is posted as Deputy Director General (Convergence & Broadcasting) at Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Government of India. TEC is India's Standards Setting Organisation, where his role includes framing standards, guidelines, and test procedures for telecom equipment and emerging technologies. Previously, as Additional Director General (IT) at Prasar Bharati, India’s Public Sector Broadcaster, he headed various digital transformation initiatives for the twin networks of Doordarshan and All India Radio and also successfully delivered their Global Digital Platform and NewsOnAir Mobile App. This involved live streaming of 230+ radio channels, live TV, text news in multiple languages, podcasts, etc. He also served as State Head Haryana & Senior GM Bharat Broadband Network Limited for the roll-out of the BharatNet Project under the Digital India initiative for providing Optical Fibre Cable connectivity to 6000+ Gram Panchayats in Haryana. His research interests include ethical aspects of Artificial Intelligence. He is the Chairman of National Working Group-9 related to Broadband Cable and TV. He is also the Vice-Chair of National Working Group-3 related to Economic and Policy Issues of International Telecommunication. He also Chairs the Working Group on Anonymization of Data supported by the Ministry of Electronics & IT. He did his B.E. in Electronics & Communications from MNIT Jaipur in 1992 and M.Tech. in Computer Science & Technology from IIT Roorkee in 1994.
Pradipta Biswas Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Science Pradipta Biswas is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing and affiliated faculty at the Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber Physical Systemsof Indian Institute of Science. HIs research focuses on user modelling and multimodal human-machine interactionfor aviation and automotive environments and for assistive technology. He setup and lead the Interaction Design Labat CPDM, IISc. He is a Co-Chair of the IRG AVA, InternationalTelecommunication Union and a Memberof the UKRI International Development Peer Review College. Earlier, he was a Senior Research Associate at EngineeringDepartment, Research Fellow at WolfsonCollege and Research Associate at Trinity Hall of University of Cambridge. He completed his PhD in Computer Science at the Rainbow Group of Universityof Cambridge Computer Laboratoryand Trinity College in 2010 and wasawarded a Gates-CambridgeScholarship in 2006. He Iundertook a first degree in Information Technologyat the University of Kalyani and a master degree atthe Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He conducted courses on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at National Institute of Fashion Technology, Automotive User Interface and AR/VR systems at Ashok Leyland, Multimodal Interaction at Honeywell, Human Computer Interactionat Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, AssistiveTechnology at Indian Institute ofTechnology, Madras and was a vice chairman of ITU-TFocus Group on Smart TV. Besides academics, he is a keen rifle shooter and won gold medals in Imperial Shooting Meet from 2010to 2015. He was the Senior Treasurer of Cambridge University Revolver and Pistol club, captain of Wolfson College Cricket Club, Trinity Collegegraduate cricket team and secretary of the Engineering Department cricket.
Takafumi Hiraki Senior Research Scientist, Cluster Metaverse Lab Takefumi Hiraki received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2014, 2016, and 2019, respectively. From 2019, he worked as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University. Since 2021, he served as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Library, Information and Media Science at the University of Tsukuba. Currently, he is a senior research scientist at Cluster Metaverse Lab at Cluster, Inc. and a collaborative associate professor at the University of Electro-Communications. His research interests include augmented reality, metaverse, human-computer interaction, haptic interfaces, and soft robotics.
Hideo Imanaka Managing Expert, Standardization Promotion Office, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) \| Chair of Working Group 5 on Interoperability, FG-MV He received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Mie University in 2001. He joined Telecommunication Network Laboratories, NTT, in 1987. In 2004, he started international standardization activities in ITU-T and the APT standardization program (ASTAP) in NTT Service Integration Laboratories. He was in charge of standardization strategy planning of the entire NTT Group in NTT Research and Development Planning Department from 2010 to 2015. Since joining NTT Advanced Technology Corporation (NTT-AT) in 2015, he has been engaged in standardization consulting. He was the rapporteur of Question 1 of SG13 from 2006 to 2010 for the Next-Generation Network and Internet Protocol television standardization work in ITU-T, the chairman of the Internet of Things (IoT) working group in ASTAP from 2012 to 2016 for IoT and smart grid standardization work, and the vice-chairman of Focus Group on IMT-2020 in 2015 for pre-standardization of 5G (fifth-generation mobile communication) networks. He is currently the rapporteur of Question 8 of SG16 in ITU-T for standardization of Immersive Live Experience and the vice-rapporteur of Question 3 of SG1 in ITU-D for international deployment of emergency telecommunications and disaster relief solutions. He is also the vice-chair of ITU-D SG2, the co-chair of Working Party 3 of SG16, the vice-chair of ITU Focus Group on metaverse, the chair of WG5 of FG-MV.
Burama Jammeh Director, Economic Regulation, Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, Gambia Burama Jammeh is a career specialist in Competition Economist. He is the current Director of Economic Regulation at the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA). Mr. Jammeh over the years has accumulated vast experience in the field of Economic Regulation, especially in telecommunications, broadcasting and Energy. He is a member of the Gambia’s DTT implementation Taskforce and has contributed to the development of the regulatory instruments for the broadcasting sector in the Gambia. He has an MBA in Financial Management from the Federal University of Owerri in Nigeria. Prior to that, he earlier obtained a BSC in Economics from the Federal University of UYO, Nigeria. He also obtained a Higher Teachers’ Certificate (HTC) from the Gambia College specializing in Mathematics and Physics. Previously, Mr. Jammeh worked with The Gambia’s Ministry of Education as a teacher and later worked with formerly the Christian Children’s Fund (now Child Fund International, specialized in child welfare focuses NGO) as an Administrative Officer. While at the Child Fund, he developed a keen interest in youth development and is still an active member in community and youth affairs.
Shin-Gak Kang Vice-Chairman, ITU-T Study Group 16 I Chairman, WP1/16 Shin-Gak KANG is the Principal Researcher of ETRI, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Republic of Korea. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electronics engineering from Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea in 1984, 1987, and 1998, respectively. He acquired national qualification on Professional Engineer of Information and Communication Technology recognized by the Korean government in 1995. After joining ETRI in 1984, he served as the Team Leader and Director in the fields of communication protocols, future networks, multimedia application and services, and open source for the past 20 years. And he has been working as the Assistant Vice President of standard and open source research department of ETRI from 2020 to early 2024. He also has been worked as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Information & Communication Network Technology at University of Science and Technology (UST) in Korea for 15 years from 2008 to 2023. He has received numerous awards including the Bronze Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit, Presidential Citation, Ministerial Citation, Excellence Awards, and IEC 1906 Awards for his very active research and development and standardization activities. Dr. Shin-Gak KANG has been involved with ITU-T standardization activities over 30 years in the fields of ICT. He has actively participated in many international standardization activities of various SDOs including ITU-T SG 7, SG 8, SG 17, SG 11, SG 13, SG 16, SG 20, GSC, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6, IETF and IEEE, as Chair, Vice-Chair, Rapporteur, Convenor, Editor, and major contributor since his first joining to ITU-T SG 8 meeting in 1988. He served as ITU-T SG11 Vice-Chairman and its WP Chairman from 2013 to 2021. Since 2004, he has been working as Convenor for ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6/WG 7 on Future Network. He is currently serving as Vice-Chairman of ITU-T SG16 and Chairman of WP1 in SG16. He has been appointed as the Chairman of ITU Focus Group on metaverse in December 2022 by TSAG and he successfully completed his FG-MV activities with great achievements in June 2024.
Masahito Kawamori Rapporteur for ITU-T SG16 Q28/16, ITU Masahito Kawamori is a Project Prof. at the Media and Governance School, Keio University, Japan. Before joining Keio University in 2013, he had been a senior research engineer of NTT, which he joined in 1989 to do research and development in application of artificial intelligence, to convergent systems for mobile and fixed telecommunication, such as conversational robots and humanoids. This became, in 1998, a part of Japan Science and Technology Agency's program called Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology Program that aimed at "Creating the Brain". Since 2000, he was involved in several projects in and outside of Japan to apply metadata and ontology for various services including, but not limited to, telecommunication and broadcasting, which have led to global standards that are currently commercially deployed in several services. He is also actively involved with the International Telecommunication Union, part of the United Nations.
Kei Kawamura Senior Manager, Advanced Visual Communication Laboratory, KDDI Research Inc., Japan Kei Kawamura received his B.E., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Global Information and Telecommunication Studies from Waseda University, Japan, in 2004, 2005, and 2013, respectively. He joined KDDI in 2010. He has been involved with developing HEVC, VVC, and V-DMC standards under JCT-VC, JVET, and MPEG-3DGH. He is currently engaged in the research and development of a video and dynamic mesh coding system at KDDI Research, Inc. His research interests include image and video processing, video and dynamic mesh coding, and multimedia distribution. He is a rapporteur of Question 1 of ITU-T Study Group 9 from 2020. He is a member of IEEE, IEICE, and ITE.
Li Lin Chief Expert, China Mobile Group Dr. Li Lin, a professor-level senior engineer, is currently the chief expert of China Mobile Group, member of the Metaverse Standardization Working Group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. He has more than 20 years of work experience at home and abroad, and has been deeply involved in technical innovation and research, standard development and industrial application in the fields of ultra-high-definition audio and video, artificial intelligence content production, 5G video ringback tone, etc. He leads major national science and technology projects, the National Natural Science Foundation, and China Mobile's major strategic scientific research projects. He leads and participates in several C-end products with a scale of over 100 million, such as Migu Video and 5G video ringtones, and experienced the top-level test of major events such as the National Day Parade, the Olympic Games, the Winter Olympics, and the World Cup. He has applied for more than 160 patents, led and participated in the formulation of more than 20 international and domestic standards and white papers. He has won many honors such as the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, etc.
Lukasz Litwic Telefon AB, LM Ericsson Dr. Lukasz Litwic is a Research Leader of Visual Technology team responsible for standardization activities in visual media coding. Lukasz represents Ericsson at several standardisation bodies including 3GPP SA4, DVB, ITU-T Q6/16, JVET and MPEG. He serves as a Chair of Interoperability WG at Media Coding Industry Forum. He holds an M.Sc. from Gdansk University of Technology, Poland, and a Ph.D. from the University of Surrey, in Guildford in the UK.
Noah Luo Chair ITU-T SG16 Mr Noah Luo is the Chair of ITU-T Study Group 16 and Vice President of Standards and Industry Development at Huawei Technologies, Co., Ltd. Mr Luo’s role oversees a wide range of responsibilities including standards, industry collaboration, ecosystems and telecom regulatory policies, etc.. Mr Luo is active in various standards fields including Network  Functionalities Virtualization (NFV), multimedia communication, cloud computing, etc. He is now leading Huawei’s standards work in the areas of NFV and multimedia.
Yoichi Matsuyama Associate Research Professor, Perceptual Computing Laboratory, Waseda University I CEO, Equmenopolis, Inc Yoichi Matsuyama is an Associate Research Professor at the Perceptual Computing Laboratory, Waseda University in Tokyo, and the Founder and CEO of Equmenopolis, Inc. He specializes in developing computational models of human conversation, integrating artificial intelligence, social science, and human-computer/robot interaction. Before his current role, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the ArticuLab, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. His work has garnered attention from major media outlets, including MIT Technology Review, The Washington Post, CNBC, BBC, CNET, Popular Science, Nikkei, and NHK. Dr. Matsuyama holds a B.A. in cognitive psychology and media studies, and both an M.E. and Ph.D. in computer science from Waseda University, earned in 2005, 2008, and 2015, respectively.
Chuanyang Miao ITU-T Study Group 16 Q13 Acting Rapporteur, ITU \| Chief Standard Engineer of Future network, Wireline Product Planning Dept, ZTE Corporation, China Chuanyang Miao, as the chief standard engineer of fixed network and multimedia service team in Wireline Product Planning Department in ZTE Corporation, is responsible for technical and standard pre-search of multimedia application, content distribution & delivery, and future networking. He began participating in ITU-T SG 16 in 2008 and serves as the Associate Rapporteur of ITU-T SG16 Q13 “Content delivery, multimedia application platforms and end systems for IP-based TV services including digital signage” from 2017 and has made continuous contributions to promoting international standardization of multimedia service content delivery, especially in IPTV and OTT TV. He is the main Editor and contributor of H.644 series Recommendations which are the specifications related to the multimedia content delivery based on IP network and MEC environment.
Satoshi Miyaji Chair ITU-T SG9, KDDI, Japan Dr. Miyaji has a long history of participating in the ITU-T SG9 (“television and sound transmission, and integrated broadband cable") almost for twenty (20) years as an expert of broadcasting and telecommunications particularly for cable television networks and services. He served as Vice Chairman of SG9 and Chairman of WP1/9 for eight (8) years in 2009 – 2016. At the WTSA-16 (General Assembly of ITU-T), he has been appointed as Chairman of SG9 for the Study Period 2017 – 2020. In KDDI, he is now responsible for development and deployment of entertainment-related business and services such as video streaming, music distribution, e-books, live concert, and so on.
Yukihiro Nishida NHK, Tokyo, Japan Dr. Nishida is an executive research engineer (Fellow) at the Science and Technology Research Laboratories, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), Tokyo, Japan. He has been involved in the research and development of many areas of broadcasting technologies, including high-definition television (HDTV), ultrahigh-definition television (UHDTV), high-dynamic range (HDR) TV, digital broadcasting, video coding, multiplexing, and quality evaluation. He is also active in the standardization of broadcast technologies in the International Telecommunication Union – Radiocommunication (ITU-R) Sector and the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB), Japan. He was the chairman of the ITU-R Study Group 6 in 2015-2023.
Stefano Polidori ITU/TSB Counsellor Stefano is a Counsellor at the International Telecommunication Union and responsible for the technical secretariat of ITU-T Study Group 9 “Broadband cable and TV”. He is also responsible for the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) activities, including the Symposium on the Future Networked Car at the Geneva Motor Show. Stefano is the ITU representative to the European Multi Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardization at the European Commission. After few years in the private sector, joined the ITU in 2004 covering various positions including Coordinator for ITU Kaleidoscope academic conference and Advisor for Study Group 11 “Signalling, protocols and test specifications”. Stefano holds a Master in Electronic Engineering from the University of Rome, Italy and a Master of Science in mobile communication from Aalborg University, Denmark.
Xin Shen Senior Director of System Analysis, China Mobile Communication Corporation, China Xin Shen is a Senior Director of IPTV&OTT System Analysis in Migu Culture Technology Co., Ltd, which is a subsidary company of China Mobile Communication Corporation. He has been involved in the research and development of OTT/IPTV related service strategy, product management, operation, and system architecture of OTT/IPTV products. Xin Shen began participating in ITU-T SG 16 in 2008 and has made continuous contributions to promoting international standardization of IPTV multimedia application frameworks and teminal devices. He is the main Editor and contributor of H.764 and H.722 series Recommendations. Xin Shen is currently focus on live and VoD content handling based on IPTV system.
Tatsuo Shibata Senior Research Engineer, Japan Cable Laboratories Tatsuo Shibata is currently with Japan Cable Laboratories (JLabs), a non-profit organization comprised of Japanese cable operators and vendors, where he is involved in research, development, and standardization of new technologies. Before joining JLabs, he was with KDDI and KDDI R&D Labs, and developed technologies related to mobile TV and cable television. He was KDDI's focal point for KDDI Corporation during 1996-2004, and while overseeing the company's ITU-T activities, he served as a rapporteur of ITU-T TSAG.
Hideki Yamamoto Vice-chairman, ITU-T SG16, Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. (OKI), Tokyo, Japan Dr. Hideki Yamamoto is a product manager of video delivery system business unit in Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd in Japan. The product, called OKI MediaServer, is popular as an IPTV platform based on ITU-T H.721 and H.702 and was adopted in ITU IPTV IPv6 Global Testbed (I3GT). He has a long history of IPTV standardization in ITU-T. He was one of editors of the ITU-T recommendation of IPTV audience measurement (ITU-T H.741.0 - H.741.4), IPTV based digital signage system framework (ITU-T H.780), multimedia framework for IPTV (ITU-T H.763.3), accessibility profiles for IPTV services (ITU-T H.702) and so on. Now, he is a vice chairman of ITU-T SG16 (Multimedia and digital services), co-Chairman of WP2 (e-services including accessibility, human interface, vehicular multimedia, digital health and so on) in ITU-T SG16, and Chairman of Expert Group on Multimedia Applications in Asia-Pacific Telecommunity Standardization Program (ASTAP).
Yunato Wang Q5/16 Rapporteur, China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, China Mr. Wang Yuntao, Engineer at China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, graduated from University of Southern California, now his work focuses on artificial intelligence algorithm, opensource, datasets and open platforms. He has been actively engaged in the work of AI related standardization and evaluation. His formal research focuses on network planning and governmental level international cooperation. Yuntao Wang has been responsible for more than 15 projects on broadband development analysis and planning. He also has rich working experiences in ITU-D and ITU-T related work.orth-American market at Toronto Stock Exchange.