FutureTech Week | Day Three: Kids Tech – How do we protect young and vulnerable children in this new era of technology?

About the speaker

Simon was appointed independent Chairman of the DTG in February 2019. His career across IT, online and broadcast media, telecoms and airport technology spans five decades.

Simon was most recently Director of Technology & Innovation at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Based in Geneva, Simon led the team driving the industry’s digital transformation and introduced several new initiatives bringing focus to areas such as cybersecurity and OTT and establishing the EBU Innovation Awards.

Simon also chaired numerous international working groups and standards bodies, as well as represented broadcasters in their negotiations with the EU on spectrum.

Before joining the EBU in 2013 he was CTO at Heathrow Airport where he managed the technical architecture department and introduced an innovation team. He has held several executive positions at UK broadcasters including ITV where he was Director of Future Technologies.

About the speaker

Chris is a passionate and experienced media technology architect and evangelist whose career began when the worlds of IT and video were yet to merge. Over the years he’s played a pivotal role in the early adoption of ABR technologies to drive OTT delivery worldwide through senior roles at organisations such as ITV, Inlet Technologies, Cisco Systems and Ericsson.

With the design, development and production of over 30 large scale enterprise video platforms under his belt, he has worked with some of the biggest brands in the industry to drive multi-platform content distribution on a global scale. Spicy Mango is an expert media technology consulting and software delivery organisation, working with clients such as Vodafone, Discovery, Akamai, Brightcove, Cisco and NBC.

About the speaker

Madiana Asseraf-Jacob is an expert in Digital Media, Media Strategy and Business Innovation. Her passion is to facilitate dialogues, identify societal needs and foster collaborative solutions for shared challenges in the media industry.

She is currently Head of Business Development & Young Audiences with the European Broadcasting Union (www.ebu.ch), the world’s largest alliance of public broadcasters, where she manages strategic programmes to support Public Service Media (PSM) to be more relevant to all audiences.

During the COVID-19 crisis, Madiana has led a number of strategic discussions and reports to support PSM Kids’ brands to meet children’s special needs to be educated, informed and entertained during this unprecedented period.

About the speaker

Carl heads up Futuresource’s Consumer Media & Tech team, having responsibility for the direction of the team’s industry and consumer research programmes across all forms of entertainment, content distribution and consumer electronics.

Carl also continues to contribute to continuous and custom projects, drawing on 20 years research and consulting experience.

Prior to his current position Carl led research and analysis teams across Home Entertainment, Broadcast Technology and Data Storage.

About the speaker

Martyn is Chief Operating Officer at SoapBox Labs (www.soapboxlabs.com). SoapBox Labs are the global leader in speech technology for children -powering safe, age appropriate and immersive play & learning experiences using voice.

Martyn has been a member of the Irish Government’s Data Forum since its inception in June 2015.He holds a Ph.D in European politics and in the early part of his career worked for the European Commission and European Parliament. He is an experienced public speaker on the future use of technology/AI and children, with a particular interest in privacy and education.