Wednesday, October 1 12:50 PM - 2:00 PM Session B: Technology Infrastructure for the Delivery of Broadband Entertainment As we move into a ubiquitous broadband universe, the delivery of entertainment, information and communication services to the consumer requires an ever growing and scalable technological infrastructure. Without the development and enhancement of broadband technologies, the entire future of the entertainment industry will be in question. Creating the new "Digital Hollywood" is not possible without the framework to support the structure itself. The products and services that will redefine technology require an infrastructure capable of supporting bandwidth intensive applications. Much of it is here today, but just as much is to come. In this session we will explore the capabilities of the systems in place, understand what kind of content we can deliver, as well as investigate what alternatives the production community has in reaching its marketplace. Seth Kenvin, Vice President Corporate Development, BigBand Networks Emil Regard, Vice President of Strategic Marketing, Hughes Network Systems Eric Miller, Chief Technology Officer, Vidiom Robert Hess, Director of Strategic Alliances, Lucent Technologies Ramin Farassat, Director of Product Marketing, Hardware Platforms, SkyStream Networks Derek Kuhn, P.Eng, BCD Chair, Director Marketing and Business Development, Broadband Media & Entertainment, Alcatel John North, Director, The Skyler Management Group, Moderator Seth Kenvin, Vice President Corporate Development, BigBand Networks: Vice President of Corporate Development Seth Kenvin joined BigBand Networks from the venture capital firm Cedar Fund where he worked from its founding. Before Cedar, he was with venture capital firm Venrock Associates. Kenvin was a senior editor of The Red Herring magazine, and was previously a member of the high technology corporate finance group of Bear, Stearns & Co. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Cornell University, and an MBA from Stanford University. Kenvin serves as treasurer and a board member for the Silicon Valley / Pacific Northwest chapter of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM). Emil Regard serves as Vice President of Strategic Marketing for Hughes Network Systems. He has over 7 years experience in the satellite broadband Internet communications industry. Mr. Regard is responsible for identifying and developing new market and technology opportunities, strategic investments, alliances and maintaining overall long-term marketing strategy. Previously, Regard served as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Loral CyberStar, a global broadband services provider. He holds a Master of Science in Technology Management from Pepperdine University and a Bachelors Degree in Business from the University of Louisiana Ramin Farassat is the director of product marketing, hardware platforms, for SkyStream Networks where he is responsible for aiding in the direction of the company's product initiatives, including their requirements and technology specifications that are key to SkyStream's growth and corporate strategy. Farassat joined SkyStream with more than 12 years of experience in the data-networking industry. Farassat is an expert in the convergence of broadband and broadcast networks, voice-over IP (VoIP), fixed broadband wireless, network management, and IP security technologies. Previously, Farassat worked at Cisco Systems as technical marketing manager and service provider solutions manager working closely with large service providers on the design of next generation network architectures. Prior to Cisco, Farassat served as senior consultant at Tandem Computers (HP/Compaq Corporation) designing fault tolerant and reliable network architectures, and worked as senior network engineer at New Bridge, building and designing managed enterprise networks. Eric Miller, Chief Technology Officer, Vidiom: Eric Miller is responsible for creating Vidiom's technology strategies, managing Vidiom's engineering division, and working with MSO's and other strategic partners to define technology strategies. Eric was part of the OCAP specification team which produced the OCAP 1.0 specification and continues to play an architectural role in developing Vidiom’s OCAP software platform, as well as the OCAP-related toolset being developed by Vidiom. Before joining Vidiom Systems, Eric was the Chief Scientist for Set Top Technology at Canal+ US Technologies. In that role, he focused on standardization of set-top interfaces as well as building a U.S. presence for Canal+. Eric spent 13 years at Microware Systems Corporation as an Engineer, Manager, and VP of New Media R&D. Eric was instrumental in developing the CD-RTOS operating system environment for the CD-i industry, and the DAVID operating system environment for the ITV industry. Both were licensed to over 20 set-top box manufacturers and were involved in world wide technology deployments. Eric has played a leadership role in the RTOS, multimedia, and ITV industry for 19 years. His work history includes Canal+ US Technologies, Cyber Forest Software, and Microware Systems Corporation. John North, Director, The Skyler Management Group: John North, Director, The Skyler Management Group. John North is a veteran content producer and system architect with extensive experience in delivering complex media products and services. Current work includes business development for Microtransaction and Integrated Asset Management applications for interactive television and other on-line markets. John brings more than thirty years of credits from live stage and studio performance, network broadcasting, print and electronic publishing, and all manner of interactivity-- from broadband to narrow, from desktops to global processing and distribution centers. An accomplished team builder, he recently led an international team in prototyping a true end-to-end, culturally-discreet, business, production and network system for a 15-country, 10-million subscriber European cable television network. Career distinctions include over one thousand production design and technical direction credits, many early webcasts, a product management position for an enterprise-class media asset management application, a business and technology columnist for the teleproduction trades, the mid-80’s specification of a closed-loop cable-to-retail ITV system, two patents for infrastructure and desktop-level advanced media systems, and the 1993-4 delivery of a 20-year broadband utilization plan to the Managing Directors of Fujitsu, NTT, and NTT Data in Tokyo that defined the limits of industry growth on the availability of extensible middleware, bandwidth on-demand Quality of Service allocation, and the deployment of real-time watermark encoders and auditable microtransaction gateways.