PORTLAND, Ore., April 15, 2014 – The Digital Living Network Alliance® (DLNA®) today announced it has awarded 10 Members with DLNA Outstanding Contribution Awards for work completed in 2013. The winners were from DLNA Member companies Access, AT&T, CableLabs, CEWIT Korea, Intel, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Telecom Italia.
“The 2013 Outstanding Contribution Award recipients epitomize the types of individuals responsible for helping DLNA achieve its goals,” said Donna Moore, DLNA executive director. “The Alliance continues to flourish due to its members’ expertise, and specifically because of the contributions and efforts of award winners such as these.”
DLNA award winners are nominated by their DLNA peers for exemplary efforts towards the fulfilment of DLNA’s mission, whether through exceptional committee performance or for leadership in reaching a principal DLNA goal. Nominees must be vetted and approved by the DLNA Board of Directors before their awards are bestowed. The 2013 award winners played a particularly significant role as the organization prepared to release CVP-2 Guidelines earlier this year, enhancing and extending the digital lifestyle by enabling consumers to enjoy their service providers’ full subscriber experiences on many different screens in the home. This year’s winners also were instrumental in driving the many ongoing DLNA programs and initiatives that have enabled the organization to create one of the world’s largest ecosystems of interoperable networked entertainment and media devices.
Honorees described their contributions and commitment to the DLNA organization as follows:
Boris Wang, sales manager, Access: “As the China Task Force Chair, with support from ACCESS, I organized two major seminars aimed at increasing DLNA’s influence in China, especially among mid-small manufactures. I also helped to arrange meetings between the Alliance and China-targeted operators, governmental departments and other customers. As a software company, ACCESS provides the latest DLNA solutions to the market, and our reputation has been greatly increased through DLNA marketing activities in China.”
Barbara Stark, lead member of the technical staff, AT&T: “AT&T is proud to be working with DLNA towards a future where consumers can effortlessly access content from any device. I am honored to be recognized for my contributions to the Alliance and look forward to continuing the work.”
Ryan Chiang, senior standardization lead, CableLabs: “CableLabs, working closely with DLNA Members from the service provider and consumer electronics communities, is proud to have contributed to the development of the DLNA CVP-2 Guidelines published earlier this year. The Guidelines enable delivery of premium cable content to a wide variety of consumer devices, such as televisions, tablets, game consoles, Blu-ray players, and HDMI sticks. CableLabs is a member of the DLNA Board of Directors, and has hosted several DLNA Plugfest events to promote the interoperability of DLNA CVP-2 products under development. It is my honor to be recognized by the Alliance for contributions to the CVP-2 effort .”
Ilchul Yoon, senior research assistant, CEWIT Korea: “CEWIT Korea has been working on sharing DLNA technologies and membership benefits to small/medium-sized companies in Korea. I am very grateful to be recognized for our contributions to expanding DLNA ’s Korean community, and also look forward to continuing the collaboration with DLNA as we reach out to non-members and show them the benefits of joining the Alliance. ”
Richard Bardini, system engineer, Intel: “As a long-time DLNA member, Intel has seen how DLNA’s Guidelines and Certification Program are key to device interoperability in the home for consumers. I was pleased to be a part of an important low-power initiative, overseeing a program to update the UPnP specifications in this area so we could extend the DLNA Guidelines and preserve baseline device interoperability without fragmenting the UPnP ecosystem with DLNA vendor extensions. I am humbly honored for being recognized by DLNA’s Board with an Outstanding Contribution A ward for this activity.”
Rebekka Porath, CE technology policy manager, Intel: “Intel has been engaged with DLNA for more than a decade. DLNA’s Guidelines and Certification Program are vital to realizing the vision of enabling consumers to enjoy ‘any content, anywhere, and on any device. ’ I am proud that my company has been part of taking yet another step towards this vision with my contribution to DLNA’s continuing efforts to optimize media interoperability, and am delighted to be recognized by DLNA’s Board with an Outstanding Contribution Award.”
Sunil Sreedharan, project manager, Sony: “DLNA is all about interoperability. The key to interoperability is a very strong test and certification program, and I am happy to have contributed to this important work within DLNA. I am thankful to the Alliance for recognizing my contributions and look forward to making continuing contributions to the DLNA ecosystem. ”
Raffaele de Peppe, industry relations and cross business initiatives, Telecom Italia: “This recognition of my contribution as European Task Force Chair is to be shared with all the many other individuals and companies who joined forces with me to make DLNA a more significant brand in the European market. Collectively, this group has participated in the most significant industry events as proud DLNA speakers, and contributed to sales force training events and many other activities. Telecom Italia, like other European companies, strongly supports DLNA as an enabling force in the consumer electronics space, driving interoperability and ease of use for consumers who want to share and enjoy personal and premium content delivered through broadband technologies.”
Additional award recipients were: Hirokazu Ishikawa, manager, Panasonic, and Yoori Lee, engineer, Samsung.
About DLNA The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a technology standards organization driven to build industry consensus to advance the interoperability of products in consumers’ connected homes. Founded in 2003 with a current membership of more than 250 companies, this unique multi-industry collaboration continues to implement an innovative set of guidelines utilized by service providers, electronics manufacturers, and software developers to provide consistent performance in a connected home environment. Consumers can share and enjoy personal and premium content, regardless of manufacturer, on a wide variety of products including mobile devices, PCs, set top boxes, AV receivers, game consoles, TVs and more. DLNA has also created a robust certification program which tests and verifies the interoperability of products built to its standards, ensuring consumers that devices branded with the DLNA Certified mark will successfully connect and exchange content. Additional information about the Alliance is available at www.dlna.org. Find the Alliance on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dlnacertified or on Twitter @DLNA. DLNA's leading member companies include ACCESS, ARRIS, AwoX, Broadcom, CableLabs, Comcast, Dolby Laboratories, DTS, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.