Access Services Experts meeting 2022

Gion Linder, Head of Access Services, Swiss Txt AG and chair of the EBU Access Services Experts Bureau
After studies in marketing, Gion Linder worked as a consultant for various new media projects in the 1980s. From 1992 to 1997, he was National Subtitling Coordinator at Swiss TXT. He then worked as content manager for a publisher, as product manager for a cable company and as a project manager for a mobile carrier. In 2007, he returned as head of the National Subtitling Coordination Service at Swiss TXT, where he is a member of the executive management team. Gion Linder is also chairman of EBU Access Services group.

Frauke Langguth is a multimedia journalist with extensive experience in print and TV, radio and online media (Radio Fritz, ORB / rbb and ORBOnline / rbb-Online). Since 2008, she has headed up ARD Text at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg in Potsdam. Her responsibilities include the ARD Text newsflash service on the leading nationwide channel, DasErste, which for more than eight years has been the most successful German teletext service. Frauke is also an expert on accessibility. ARD Text provides subtitles for numerous programmes on the first and third ARD channels, with a focus on live subtitling. Other areas of responsibility include media development, social media, interactive television and smart TV (HbbTV).

Siri is a trained Sign Language interpreter and started interpreting in 1989.  In 2000 she started working at NRK as Head of NRKs Sign Language TV Channel. In 2011 she also became editor-in-chief for NRKs Signed News Broadcast. In 2014 Siri became NRKs first Strategic Head of Accessibility.  She is also a certified Diversity leader, and she is Head of NRKs Diversity Project. The project is building strategies for Diversity and Belonging. Siris mother is Deaf.  

Amélie graduated in Applied Arts and started her career as a multi-disciplinary designer and marketing adviser, working with advertising and communication agencies. She joined the EBU in Summer 2004 and specialised in broadcast industry/public media sector, acting currently as senior project manager, community facilitator, event planner and producer.

Amélie manages the activities of two international groups of Media experts, one specialized in PSM Marketing (EBU Connect) and the other one in media accessibility (EBU Access Services group).Since 2013, she’s bringing together senior access service experts representatives from the EBU Membership but also from private organisations, to exchange information and discuss topics of relevance to the activities of PSM Accessibility.

Besides her EBU community remits, she is also acting as producer and coordinator for the Eurovision Young Musicians competition and the #SayHi Eurovision Kids Friendship campaign.

Katty heads the Brussels-based global trade body for marketers of advertising solutions across TV/video & radio/audio platforms. The association, a network of 166 members across over 40 countries, helps members transform, grow and diversify their businesses. Katty has been with egta for over 25 years, 10 of which as Director General – she therefore has a privileged ‘helicopter view’ of the on-going transformation of TV & radio both as media and as advertising platforms.

Warren joined egta in 2021 and sits within the trade body’s TV research department - he manages some of the association’s TV & video-related projects, events and research publications. Warren works on the topics of diversity, inclusion and accessibility amongst others and has experience working at various European institutions and associations, with a background in the audio-visual, education and cultural sectors.

Nigel Megitt is the BBC's Executive Product Manager with responsibility for Access Services technology. He co-chairs both the W3C Timed Text Working Group and the EBU Timed Text group, and has been active in the Access Services sector for over 6 years. Previously Nigel worked in enterprise architecture and at BBC Research & Development where he led a team of developers working on EPG schedule data systems.

Klaus Merkel joined RBB in April 2021 and actively contributes to the development of the HbbTV standard and its practical application in the context of regular HbbTV services. From 1991-2021 Klaus had been employed at IRT where he was engaged in working groups for the definition and market introduction of open and interoperable platforms for interactive TV.

Benoît has a BA in Informatics. In 2018, he started working as Program & Project Manager in accessibility at SWISS TXT. After having realized several projects with live subtitling, he collaborated since the creation of the SRG's Play Suisse project. He quickly found solutions and set up a workflow mixing human and machine to prepare, translate and distribute subtitles in the national languages.
Benoît operates as Service Owner of the Mediahub tools at SWISS TXT. He works closely with the development team to constantly improve the product. His ambition is to adjust constantly the balance between machine automation and human works to deliver good quality, faster and to evolve with new possibilities.

Nicola is Head of Access Services since 2019. Her main concern is to make ZDF’s programme available on all platforms. Above the mere administering of workflows, Nicola focuses on the overall aspects of diversity and inclusion as the basis of human understanding. Working in the media for 30 years now, she is still impressed with its potential for change and re-invention. In 1991, she received a Master’s degree in American Studies and German Literature. She lives with two kids and a husband in Wiesbaden.

Karen Lerbech is Project Manager for Diversity and Accessibility at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. She has a background in journalism, and before becoming a part of the Diversity and Accessibility team, she worked as a digital feature journalist at DR.
She holds an MA in Journalism from the University of Southern Denmark and an MSc in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Francisco Armero is RTVE Broadcast Technical Director and Head of Access Services. He graduated from the E.T.S. Ingenieros de Telecomunicación of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, as an telecommunications engineer.
He has an extensive experience in participation and coordination or research projects, in topics dealing with Television Access Services.
Member of the CESyA (Spanish Center for Subtitling and Audio Description) Working Group where the guidelines for the use of quality indicators in Television Access Services are being generated.
Member of the CNLSE (National Center for Sing Language Normalization) Working Group to establish best practices and strategies about the use of sign language on television.

Arantza del Pozo is Director of Speech and Language Technologies at Vicomtech. She holds a Masters and PhD in Speech and Language Technologies from the University of Cambridge and currently leads a team of 20 people dedicated to the research, development and transfer of speech and language technologies to industry. In the audiovisual field, she was coordinator of SAVAS and SUMAT, two European projects exploring how speech recognition and machine translation can help optimize intralingual subtitling and subtitle translation. Since then, her team has continued to work on the development of automatic subtitling technology.

Håkan has been an employee of Swedish Public Service Broadcaster SVT for 17 years, starting off as a sound engineer, then moving on to different positions as a manager and project leader in the field of accessibility services, e.i. the project that resulted in a daily news show in sign language and sign language interpretations. Since 2020 he is head of the team providing live captioning at SVT.

Kay Macquarrie is an innovation manager for DW and holds a Master’s in multimedia production. He is very much into language technologies and accessibility — and unlocking their power with state-of-the-art tools.

Jonathan Penny runs the Audio Description department for ITV, overseeing the AD provision for this UK broadcaster's linear and on-demand requirements. As well as production,  Jonathan manages the team of staff and freelance describers and leads on R&D initiatives, including a groundbreaking new policy to improve the representation of onscreen diversity within AD. Underpinning this is a strong belief in the value of user consultation, and Jonathan runs a permanent focus group with blind and visually impaired audiences as a feedback channel on AD output and as a support to these new projects. He also advocates for greater accessibility awareness across the business and is involved with ITV's new accessibility champions network. Previously, he has worked for Red Bee Media and TVT in subtitling and audio description roles. Jonathan also describes live opera and theatre across Scotland and is a board trustee for VocalEyes, a provider of AD for the arts and heritage sectors. Outside of work, Jonathan enjoys sewing, cooking and playing tennis (though not necessarily in that order). 

Njål has a Phd in Computer Science and has been researching online media related topics since 2003. He has had a focus on multi-device synchronization and flexible online media since 2008 through participation in a number of national and international research projects. Currently Njål leads the "Accessibility and Interaction" work package of the Media Futures SFI project. He is also founder and CEO of Motion Corporation, a company that provides global, online synchronization.

Peter Bjerre Rosa (MA, Film and Media Studies) is Subtitling Development Manager at DR. He has 17 years’ experience subtitling theatrical films, TV shows and news programmes with Chinese as a niche language. Co-author of “Guidelines for Subtitling in Denmark” (www.undertekstning.dk), inspired by a similar Norwegian project.

Claes Emil Holmberg (MA, Philosophy) is part of the live subtitling team at DR. He is focused on developing models that more accurately assess real world subtitles both qualitatively and quantitatively. He is the principal author behind the NERD-model.

Robin Ribback today is Head of Innovation Management at SwissTXT AG, a 100% subsidiary of the Swiss public broadcaster SRG-SSR. SwissTXT is a central provider of Digital Media Operations (DMO) services and accessibility services (AS) like closed captioning, subtitling, audio description and sign language for all channels of the SRG group.
Robin is responsible for the development of new the new technologies and the implementation of EU innovation projects. 
He is co-founder and was CIO of VerbaVoice GmbH where he developed access services "Beyond TV". He has a long history in IT and the media services. As a board member of Media Professionals AG he developed complex platforms for the production and transmission of television and radio programs via satellite / cable and the Internet. His career also includes, Norcom AG, Munich, where he was responsible for the development and integration of newsroom systems as CIO.