AMS 2022 Speakers
AIBD is proud to have esteemed speakers for Asia Media Summit 2022
Session 1- Ministerial Session: Strengthening Media in a changing world
With the massive audience shift from linear media to new media, staying relevant for broadcasting organisations is challenging but necessary for long-term success. Traditional Media is not dead, neither it is fading but is rapidly developing. However, it must reshape to avoid becoming redundant. Such kind of transformation entails transitioning from serving a traditional audience through a traditional yet confined medium to serving audiences wherever they are, i.e., a larger media ecosystem.
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H.E Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum Attorney General & Minister of Communications, Ministry of Communications, Republic of FijiHon. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is Fiji’s Attorney-General and Minister for Economy, Civil Service, Communications, Housing and Community Development and also serves the Minister responsible for climate change.As the Minister for Communications, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum has overseen a massive expansion in access to mobile services, extending coverage to 95 per cent of the country. Fiji has also experienced a boom in access to high speed internet services and Free-to-Air digital television, which is now available all throughout the geographically-remote nation.Chief amongst the Attorney-General’s reforms of the communications sector – which have garnered international acclaim – has been the establishment of community “telecentres,” an initiative that has already exceeded expectations, providing free Internet access to more than 800,000 Fijians, including 8,000 schoolchildren. |
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H.E Anurag Singh Thakur Mr. Anurag Singh Thakur is Minister of Information & Broadcasting and Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India. Before taking over the current charge, he served as the Minister of State for Finance& Corporate Affairs in Government of India. He is the former National President of BharatiyaJanataYouvaMorcha, the youth wing of the BharatiyaJanata Party. He has been recognized as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum and was made the “Global Champion” in the category of Public Health by Global Fund.
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Hon. Toelupe Poumulinuku Onesemo Minister of Communications and Information Technology for Samoa Hon. Toelupe Poumulinuku Onesemo is the Minister of Communications and Information Technology for Samoa since May 2021. Before he became a minister he had worked in the public sector for many years and was the Chief Executive officer of the Ministry of Works Transport and Infrastructure. As the Minister of Communications and Information technology, his powers spread over the communication sector which also includes the postal services areas as well as broadcasting services domain in Samoa. He also seeks to strengthen regional and international partnerships in building the resilient digital ecosystem through sound engagements with those countries with similar interests in building our blue pacific and Asia.
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H.E. Dr. Khieu Kanharith Minister of Information Kingdom of Cambodia H.E. Dr. Khieu Kanharith is the Minister of Information of the Kingdom of Cambodia since 2004 to present day. He was first elected to the National Assembly of Cambodia in 1981. In 1991, Prime Minister Hun Sen asked him to serve as an advisor on the Council of Ministers. During the period of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), he became an official spokesman for the State of Cambodia. Following UNTAC, he was elected to the Constituent Council in May 1993. He was once again elected to the National Assembly in 1998. He regained the title of Minister of Information in 2004 to present day. In 2020 he got the honorary doctoral degree of Liberal Arts from Rajamangala University of Technology Phra Nakhon (RMUTP). He is also a translator in Khmer language version of the James Clavell novel Shõgun, which he has had it printed with his own money, Lawrence Pich’s book “Far beyond the horizons” |
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H.E Ounethousang Khaophanh,
Deputy Minister of Information, Culture & Tourism, Lao PDR
His Excellency was appointed the Deputy Minister of Information, Culture & Tourism of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) since 2016. Prior to that, Hon. Qunethousang served as the Ministry’s Director-General of Tourism Management Department and Lao National Tourism Administration from 2005 to 2016 with his vast experience as the Director of Tourism Site Management Division, Ministry of Commerce and Tourism and Representative on Tourism sector at Lao Embassy to Thailand from 1996 to 2005.
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H.E. Anucha Nakasai Minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, Kingdom of Thailand H.E. Anucha Nakasai is the Minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, Kingdom of Thailand. Having served the Royal Thai government as a minister since 2020, his responsibilities include the government’s media and public relations tasks. Before assuming the position, he was elected as a member of parliament three times and earned the position of secretary in several ministries, such as Transport and Industry. This year (2022), H.E. Anucha is the Chairman of the National Sub-Committee on Public Relations for APEC Economic Meetings, in charge of Thailand’s communications during its year as the host of APEC.
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Tomas Lamanauskas Managing Partner, Envision Associates, U.K Tomas Lamanauskas is Managing Partner of Envision Associates, a public policy, regulatory and strategy advisory firm. Tomas has also been nominated by the Government of Lithuania as a candidate for Deputy Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union for the 2022 elections. His experience in telecoms and digital policy, regulation and strategy includes positions of Member of the Board, CEO and Deputy General Director of national communications regulatory authorities in Europe, the Middle East and Caribbean, and senior government advisor on information and communications technologies policy in the Pacific. He also served as Head of Corporate Strategy as well as Special Advisor for Crisis Strategy (COVID-19) and Partnership Initiatives for the International Telecommunication Union, and Group Director Public Policy at VEON, a multinational technology and communications company.
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Session 2- Content Consumption: What Audience Wants and What Data is Telling Us?
With the changing media consumption behavior, it is necessary to track the audience minute by minute to ensure whether the efforts by media organisations are put in the right direction or not. Mining media consumption data of the consumers has never been easy. However, with such kind of big data, it is necessary for the media practitioners to extract useful insights as to the right information in the right context.
This session will highlight the success stories by the media intelligentsia that how data is currently being used to analyse the audiences’ needs and how to hold their attention through delivering personalised and unique content. mining media consumption data of audiences.
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Shamsul Izhan Abdul Majid Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, MCMC, Malaysia Recognised for his track record in Digital Transformation for business growth, Sam is a Business Technology leader with vast international experience in driving innovative growth across a diverse range of landscape including transportation, utilities, logistics, telecommunications and Government. At the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Sam is responsible as the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer (CTIO) |
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Gus Seebeck Founder & Managing Director, Cluch.TV Gus has over 20 years experience in sport and sports media having held senior roles across terrestrial television, cable TV and commercial and media rights agencies. Gus is the founder and managing director of Cluch.TV, one of Australia’s fastest growing OTT video and platform businesses. Cluch works with many of Australia’s largest participation sports including Rugby, Football, Netball, Rugby League, AFL and Hockey to help grow audience engagement and commercial outcomes from video streaming.
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Dr Bharath Mohan Chief Executive Officer, Sensara.TV Dr. Bharath Mohan is the Founder & CEO of Sensara.tv, an AI for Television startup from Bangalore, India. Sensara delivers video AI products to large transforming media enterprises like Airtel, Sony, Xiaomi, Disney+Hotstar etc. Before founding Sensara.tv, Dr. Bharath worked at Google, and has a PhD in Information Retrieval & Machine Learning from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
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Marta Díez Product Marketing Manager, Jump Data-Driven, Spain With an extensive background in Business Administration and Management and a solid track record in Sales and Marketing teams in the video streaming and data analysis sector, Marta Díez will present as product marketing manager at JUMP, the power of data and the importance of audience segmentation to grow the business.
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Raviratan Arora Chief Executive Officer, Decision craft. , USA Mr. Raviatan Arora had set up Asia’s first overnight TV audience measurement system, named aMap, with 7,000 panel households spread over 83 towns, in India. Based on that experience his company conceptualized and developed proprietary end-to-end TV audience measurement hardware system (peoplemeters, operating software, and hosting). The hardware/software has been designed to produce TV audience measurement in real-time. The system has been used in Malaysia, Mexico, and Bulgaria.The hardware for the system (peoplemeters) is manufactured in South Korea/China.
Mr. Arora has also developed a TV advertisement monitoring system (almost fully automated system, based on image-processing technology), cTrack (www.ctrack.tv), that is now live in USA, UK, Canada, Singapore, and UAE. The reports on TV advertising are available to the clients overnight. This highly scalable system can monitor advertising on any number of TV channels, anywhere in the world. The same back-end infrastructure is used for all the countries.
Developed a patented (Patent no. US 2009/0070443) system to determine demographic profiles of anonymous users on Internet.
Ravi (Raviratan) Arora held the position of Executive Director, while working at DDB Mudra Private Limited. Ravi worked in this capacity for 13 years (October 1986 – January 2000).
While working at Mudra Communications (now DDB Mudra), I set up a media buying, and an outdoor advertising ventures. he was a member of the governing council of Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad.
Mr. Arora, an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, lives in the greater New York City area.
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Paul Matthew A.I Ethicist, India Paul brings his expertise in Future facing tech – AI, ML & Cloud +, across Media & Entertainment, Banking/Financial Services, Telecom, Manufacturing, Pharma + Life Sciences, Consumer & E-commerce sectors.
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Session 3-The Media of Web 3.0: A Shifting Landscape in The Digital Age
The media industry will continue to evolve, and it is evident that this will not stop in the future. These changes are the result of technological advancements and changes in how media consumers use and rely on various information-based internet applications. In the coming age of Web 3.0 where the Internet will be decentralised, adopting technologies to utilise the potential of blockchain will be necessary for the media industry.
This session will discuss the major changes that are likely to occur in the world of media and how these changes can benefit those who provide content to their audience, where advanced and immersive platforms will be readily available to consumers, aided by 5G.
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Ajay Mishra
Global Technology Leader, India Ajay Ranjan Mishra is a Pioneer, Author, and Board member – a well-recognized face in the world of IT and Telecom. He is a Fellow of IETE (Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers). Ajay was the Chairman of Focus Group: Innovations to Standards at ITU@ United Nations. He is also Visiting Fellow at Judge Business School, Cambridge University, the UK in the area of Business Strategy and Innovations. He was also invited by INSEAD Business School, France, to work on Innovation management. He has a working experience of more than 24+ years in the Industry – working in leadership positions at Nokia, Reliance JIO, and now Ericsson. He has worked with operators, and government and non-govt bodies in more than 60 countries across six continents. He is also a founding member of India’s two Telecom Standards-making bodies. |
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Andy Quested International Production and Accessible Media Standards Consultant, U.K Andy Quested started at the BBC in 1978 becoming a video-tape editor in 1985 working on comedy, children’s & documentaries. Moving to a new technology department he, worked on introducing non-linear editing, stereo, widescreen, the BBC’s first HD programme Planet Earth I and the first UHD programme Planet Earth II Andy led the EBU Production Strategic Programme until 2021, was a Rapporteur for the ITU-R on HDR, 3DTV, the Global Broadcasting Platform, componentized content creation and image quality. He is currently Chair of ITU-R content production, Working Party 6C and Co-Chair of the Accessibility group. As chair, he initiated new areas of study on Advanced Immersive Sensory Media Systems and Artificial Intelligence in content production. Andy left the BBC at the end of 2020 but is still leading standards work in the ITU and EBU QC. He is also an active member of SMPTE, becoming a Fellow in 2014.
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Arnaud Simon Founder In&Out Stories, France Arnaud Simon kicked off In&OutStories in 2018 to help sports rights holders to build impactful distribution models combining broadcasting/networks deals with owned DtoC propositions.
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Dr Amal Punchihewa Broadcast Engineering Consultant, New Zealand Dr. Amal Punchihewa is a Chartered Professional Engineer and Fellow of IET(UK) and a senior member of IEEE(USA). He is also a distinguished lecturer of IEEE-Broadcast Technology Society. He was elected a Fellow for advancing engineering knowledge and practice. He is recognised in New Zealand and internationally as an information and communications technology engineering expert. He possesses more than 35 years of experience in all three sectors of broadcasting; viz. Academia, Research and Industry in senior broadcasting technology and ICT roles, including research and developments, regional capacity building in media and head of engineering of national television – SLRC-Rupavahini in Sri Lanka, having started a career in computer engineering.
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Harish Pillay Technology Ethicist, Red Hat, Singapore Harish has been with Red Hat since 2003. He has held many roles and is currently the Head of, Open Source Program Office (APAC). In this role, he and his group works with the greater open source community, to engage, in the APAC region, with government and C-level executives in various industry verticals on issues around open standards, open data, open-source and how all of these can bring critical value to the respective entities. These conversations also cover how governments and corporations can adopt the open source ethos and practices – innersourcing for a start – that have proven In 2017, a project he led in Red Hat, called Prospector, was transferred to the Linux Foundation and is now part of the CHAOSS community project. In 2013, he was named Distinguished Partner by Enterprise Singapore, the national standards and quality agency in Singapore for his work and contributions to IT standards work in Singapore and at the International Standards Organization, ISO. He is a avid hashman, a ham radio operator (9V1HP) and hosts many events at teaching the next generation on all this around open source and tech. |
(Moderator)Session 4-Broadcasting Humane Stories in line with Agenda 2030
We live in a time when people have never had more information available to them, yet it is still difficult for them to understand what are the core issues that shape their social lives. A global challenge for governments and policymakers to analyse the grass-root issues of their respective societies is a lack of humane stories in mass media. As the media is an essential pillar of democracy and a social watchdog, it is the only way for the public to understand their world. The ability to tell stories has the potential to unite or divide us. In this day and age, the masses cannot afford to be uneducated, especially when it comes to human development issues.
It is evident that the success of Agenda 2030 heavily depends on how the media spotlights the key problem areas and disseminates accurate information to its consumers. This session will highlight the various methods of broadcasting humane stories in line with Agenda 2030.
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Dr Tawfik Jelassi
Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO Dr. Tawfik Jelassi was appointed UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information on 1st July 2021. In this position, he is responsible for the Organization’s programmes on building inclusive knowledge societies, leading digital transformation, strategizing the role of ICT in education, and fostering freedom of expression. Dr. Jelassi holds a Ph.D. doctorate in information systems from New York University (USA) and postgraduate diplomas from the University of Paris Dauphine (France). Dr. Jelassi has extensive experience in higher education, scientific research, and information & communication technologies. He held academic, corporate and government leadership positions in Europe, the USA, and Tunisia. Among others, he was Programme Director and Professor of Strategy and Technology Management at IMD Business School in Lausanne (Switzerland, 2015 – June 2021). Prior to that, he served as Minister of Higher education, Scientific Research and Information & Communication Technologies in the democratic transition government of Tunisia (2014 – 2015). Prior appointments included being Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ooredoo Telecom in Tunisia, Dean at Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (Paris), and Professor & Chairman of the Technology Management Department at INSEAD (Fontainebleau). |
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Astuko Okuda Regional Director, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Asia-Pacific Region Atsuko Okuda was appointed as the Regional Director for International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Asia Pacific in April 2020. Prior to the new assignment, she was the Chief of the ICT and Development Section of the ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in Bangkok, Thailand from 2015 to 2020. At ESCAP, she promoted the development of regional broadband connectivity and inclusive broadband through the implementation of the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway (AP-IS) initiative. Before joining ESCAP, Ms. Okuda served the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in Beirut as the Chief of the Governance and State-building Section and as the Team Leader responsible for ESCWA Knowledge Management. Prior to it, she contributed to the Umoja project, the UN Secretariat ERP initiative, as Testing Manager at the Department of Management, UNHQ for 2 years. |
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Romeo Arca Assistant Director, Head of Community Relations Division, ASEAN Secretariat Romeo Arca Jr. is a communication, mobilization and advocacy practitioner from the Philippines with more than two decades of professional experience in both non-governmental and inter-governmental settings in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Romeo is currently the Head of Community Relations Division at ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta. His team is responsible for raising public awareness on ASEAN, media and stakeholders engagement and public outreach.
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Aaron Kearney Communications Adviser Australia Timor Leste Partnership for Human Development on Disaster programming, Timor Leste Aaron Kearney (OAM) is a multi-award-winning broadcaster, photojournalist, sports commentator, five-time New York Festival award winner, AIPS Sports Award Silver Medallist and the 44th MEAA Prodi Journalist of the Year. He has won a Walkley Award for emergency broadcasting and forged a career across newspapers, television, radio and social with Fairfax, Channel Seven Australia, the ABC and others.
As ABC’s Pacific Disaster Preparedness Broadcast Unit Lead and host of the “Pacific Prepared” disaster mitigation program, he was a finalist in the UNESCO-ABU Together for Peace Awards in 2021.
He is currently the Director of AKS Media International and leads the Communications and Translation Teams for the $120M Australia Timor-Leste Partnership for Human Development, based in Dili.
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Rajnesh Singh Regional Vice President, Asia-Pacific, Internet Society, Singapore Rajnesh Singh is Regional Vice-President for the Asia-Pacific at the Internet Society, a non-profit organisation dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet worldwide. In this role he works with a broad range of stakeholders including governments, civil society, academia, the private sector, the technical community and influencers in the Asia-Pacific region to promote technologies, policies and best practices to keep the Internet open, globally connected, secure and trusted for the benefit of people all across the world. Prior to joining the Internet Society, Rajnesh played founding and leading roles in several technology and private equity investment firms. He has extensive experience in business management. and strategy development across multiple industries, including telecommunications, power infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing and real estate. He has provided consulting and mentoring support to start-ups and SMEs in the Asia-Pacific region, and has held advisory roles across multiple sectors ranging from governmental to sporting organisations and the private sector. Rajnesh has worked extensively with the technology sector, and has held several leadership roles, including Chair of the Asia-Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) and Founding Chair of ICANN’s Asia Pacific Regional At-Large Organisation (APRALO). He has served on a number of Advisory Boards, and on Expert Working Groups for regional and international organisations on infrastructure, policy and regulatory reform, and development issues.
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(Moderator)Session 5-Narrowing the Technological Gap in the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting industry
As a result of the digital transformation in recent years, the broadcast and media industries have become intensely competitive. The session will cover regional government policies and development in implementing new technologies in both developed and developing regions.
Media intelligentsia will share case studies on emerging trends in the broadcast and media industries. In addition, the session will provide insight into the current state of affairs in evolving markets in terms of adapting to new technological possibilities.
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Chetan Sharma
Chief Executive Officer, Chetan Sharma Consultancy, USA Chetan Sharma is CEO of Chetan Sharma Consulting and is one of the leading strategists in the mobile industry. He has worked in the mobile and tech industry for over 28 years. Executives from wireless companies around the world seek his accurate predictions, independent insights, and actionable recommendations. He has served as an advisor to senior executive management of several Fortune 100 companies in the wireless space and is probably the only industry strategist who has advised each of the top 9 global mobile data operators and operators in each |
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Brandon Sier Chief Commercial Officer, Kacific Broadband Satellites Group Brandon Seir is a marketing, sales and strategic planning specialist with over a decade of experience working in leading international telecommunications, internet service providers and digital technology companies. Brandon spent 11 years initially as Director Sales, and then Chief Commercial Officer with Roshan (Telecom Development Company), a GSM cellular provider with over 7.9 million customers, and a subsidiary of AT&T, Talia Sonora & Monaco Telecom. Prior to that, Brandon was Director International Business Development for Singaporean company Technobiz Equipment, providing enterprise payments solutions to telecom operators, banks, internet and utility service providers. At Kacific, Brandon is overseeing the development of the company’s range of satellite broadband service offerings. He is also responsible for sales of dynamic solutions in 25 markets covered by Kacific1. Brandon holds an MBA from the University of Liverpool and a BBA from Tashkent State University. |
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Fintan Mc Kiernan Chief Executive Officer, Ideal Systems, Pte Ltd., Singapore Fintan joined Ideal Group in 2011 to establish Ideal Systems in South East Asia (SEA) which now has offices in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta. Subsequently Ideal SEA built studios, facilities and systems for RTM, SingTel, MediaCorp, Sony Pictures, Fox Sports, Astro, Globecast, Encompass Digital Media, CNN, Metro TV, CNBC, SUKE.TV, iFAST.TV, Football Association of Singapore and many more. Fintan is a member of the ABU’s Engineering Excellence Awards panel of judges. Prior to joining Ideal, Fintan established OmniBus Systems in APAC (Now Grass Valley) and has worked in broadcast technology roles in the US and Europe. Fintan is a regular contributor and speaker at broadcast industry events and webinars including SMPTE, ABU and Broadcast Asia. |
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Syed Ale Raza
Founder, Managing Director, Whiteways, Singapore He is a thought leader and visionary. His company – Whiteways is a leading systems integration company focused on providing solutions to broadcast houses. Prior to founding Whiteways, Aale was Head – South Asia and Emerging markets for Kit Digital Inc (NASDAQ – kitd). Kit Digital was the
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(Moderator)Session 6-Strategies for Diversifying Revenue Streams
Traditional broadcasters’ economics are modifying the dynamics of technological advancements and changes in media consumption habits. The audience can now control, customise, and even personalise media content. The growing trend has implications for ad avoidance, which could lead to a battle between traditional broadcasting and new media.
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Bala Murali Subramaney
Chief Technical Officer, Astro Radio Sd Bhd, Malaysia Mr Subramaney is a seasoned, broadcast professional with more than 25 years’ experience in planning, designing, integration and implementation of large-scale radio broadcasting complex. He is result oriented, with proven track records of accomplishments and highly diverse engineering knowledge and propensity to initiate positive changes. His strong business acumen and strengths, aided in translating commercial and functional requirements to technical specifications in reengineering business processes and defining continuous improvement. He is a technology visionary with ability to cut through the hype and rationalize innovation into measurable market opportunities in anticipating and harnessing new technologies for business growth. A strong track record of building and retaining expert engineering teams, developing corporate technology strategy, designing cutting-edge radio studios and being a key player in developing next generation console technology for radio industry. |
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Sandeep Marwar Founder & President. Asian Academy of Film & Television and Noida Film City, India Internationally acclaimed Dr. Sandeep Marwah is an incredible name in the world of films. With seven world records in his kitty, he stands distinct as the founder of Noida Film City, and the creator of Marwah Studios. He is the designer behind the Academy of Film & Television, which is one of the ten best film schools, in the world. As the producer of the largest number of short films in the world, he has been associated with innumerable feature films, television programs, and amateur training films. |
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Mohd Syaufiq Bin Abdul Latif Assistant Director, Copyright Division, MYIPO, Malaysia Syaufiq currently the Assistant Director of Copyright Division, Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO). He assists the Director of Copyright division and Copyright Controller in monitoring copyright legislation, regulations as well as responsible to ensure effective compliance for Copyright Act 1987 in Malaysia. Prior to his current role, after been admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor on 2014, he commenced his practice as a legal counsel in legal firm in 2014-2015.
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Alan James
James and Wilkinson Media (Director and Co-Founder) Alan has over thirty-five years’ experience in the media world encompassing both the broadcast and advertising arena. Alan co – founded James & Wilkinson Media (JWM) in 2011. A company unique to the broadcast arena, providing specific on-screen marketing and media planning consultancy, strategy, and training for broadcasters globally, helping them to realize the true potential of their valuable owned promotional space – TV, Radio and VOD. Prior to JWM, Alan had been the BBC’s first Head of Media Planning where he introduced professional media planning to the corporation with responsibility for the on-air media planning across all the BBC’s public service TV, radio networks and digital platforms. Alan’s career in the advertising sector prior to the BBC included his role as Broadcast Buying Director of Ogilvy & Mather.
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Samir Kumar Head of Prasar Bharati New Services & Digital Platform, Prasar Bharati, India Samir Kumar, presently is serving India by building Public Broadcaster’s digital arm as Head, Prasar Bharati News Services & Digital Platform, India. Before this he was CEO of Hindusthan Samachar. He is advisor and seed investor to many startups in the domains of Agriculture, HeathCare, Education, Media and IPR. Samir Kumar, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta is also ex-IAS (allied) and has worked with ABN AMRO, Deutsche Bank and RBS in London, Tokyo and Singapore at senior positions. He has received prestigious National Award for producing feature film “Mithila Makhaan”. He has also co-authored “Unfolding intellectual Property Rights”.
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Session 7- CEO Roundtable– Reimagining Media
OTTs, streaming services, and Direct-to-Mobile are driving content distribution and capturing audience attention. What do traditional media practitioners require to thrive in a video environment that is becoming increasingly competitive? What steps are various traditional media organisations taking to ensure the monetization of their content in a cord-cutting environment? How can multicultural content providers monetize their over-the-top content?
In this session, media and broadcasting entrepreneurs and experts discuss the impact of technological disruption, piracy, and other factors on broadcasting, potential changes to business models, and the importance of diversity in media and storytelling.
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Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum
Chief Executive Officer, Fiji Broadcasting Corporation, Fiji Mr. Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is the Chief Executive Officer of the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation, Fiji’s national broadcaster and the nation’s biggest media broadcaster in Fiji. Under his direction, the FBC progressed from a radio broadcaster of six (6) radio stations in three (3) of Fiji’s major languages (Fijian, Hindi, English), to a fully-fledged broadcasting organisation with a national TV channel- FBC TV. Two (2) channels were later added to this national service in the form of the regions first 24 hour free to air Sports channel- FBC Sports and Fiji’s first non-commercial public service channel- FBC 2. The FBC under Mr. Sayed-Khaiyum’s guidance in recent years has also successfully expanded its business into Events organising, audio& visual production and digital media. Despite the FBC being the youngest recent television operator in the country, in the last four (4) years FBC TV has been ranked as the most watched TV channel in the country. |
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Shashi S. Vempati
Chief Executive Officer, Prasar Bharati, India As the youngest and first non-bureaucrat CEO of India’s Public Broadcaster since 2017, Shashi is currently overseeing the transformation of the twin networks of Doordarshan comprising more than 35 television channels and of All India Radio encompassing more than 400 radio stations. A Technocrat, Shashi is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Bombay. After a long stint at the Indian Information Technology major Infosys Technologies, Shashi managed a digital news media startup Niti Digital before taking up his current role in Public Broadcasting. He also serves on the Boards of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) and the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) apart from the Indian Council for World Affairs and the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT). An author and a columnist, Shashi has published on politics, public policy and emerging areas of technology like Artificial Intelligence and Broadcast-Broadband Convergence. |
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Shahin Islam Director General, National Institute for Mass communications, Bangladesh Shahin Islam has worked for the Economic Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance in almost all the Wings (Departments), such as the World Bank Wing, Europe Wing, Foreign Aid Budget and Accounts & Coordination and Nordic Wing and worked her way up to Wing Chief till March, 2019. The National Defense Academy, the premier national institute on strategic development and security studies conferred her the prestigious suffix ‘NDC’ upon completion of a year-long National Defense Course 2016 on National Security & Development Strategy. She joined the National Institute of Mass Communication(NIMC) in April 2019. With the aim of building up NIMC as a centre of excellence, she has been actively involved in training electronic media journalists both in the government as well as in the private sector. This institute aims to create awareness of social issues including health, climate change, good governance, gender, disaster management, etc. to empower people through knowledge, adapt to new technologies as well as to enable the media personnel to play their due role as the 4th pillar of the state. |
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Raja Singham Chief Executive Officer, BAC , Malaysia Chairman of BAC Education Group, Raja Singham is an educator, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Raja Singham was named Education Man of the Year by the Brand Laureate and received the National Outstanding Educator Award in 2015. Raja was appointed to the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ABAC) as a Council member and is also the Lead Mentor of the ASEAN Mentorship for Entrepreneurs Network (AMEN). He founded BACflix.com – a free online learning portal. He established the Make It Right Movement (MIRM) and Giveback.my to help the most vulnerable. |
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Philomena Gnanapragasam Director, AIBD Ms Philomena has to date initiated the Health Communication Manual and works with WHO, UNU, and NIH Malaysia to train journalists on health journalism and create relevant content on Covid-19 awareness. More than a hundred journalists from Asia-Pacific and Africa have been trained so far. The manual is presided by health experts, science researchers, and media practitioners. Ms Philomena also has significant experience in both radio and television programming.
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