Sandbox Prize Prize Development for Sandbox Projects

MediaRoad has established a Prize programme to recognize the best projects that emerge across all active MediaRoad project Sandboxes.
Acquisition of the Quality Label is a pre-condition for accreditation to the Prize programme.

There are three Prize categories:
• Technology
• Content
• New Sandbox (that has created the most quality label projects)

Prize winners will be announced in September 2019 at the IBC.

Jury members

Antonio is director of Technology & Innovation of the European Broadcasting Union. He has extensive experience in conceiving, developing and taking new products and services to market. He has worked as Director of Innovation, and a Member of the Management Committee, at Eutelsat since 2008 where he was responsible for launching innovative IP based satellite services.

Antonio is an internationally acclaimed expert in digital television, satellite communications, IP-based multimedia services and mobile telecommunications and managed a team of international experts. Amongst his many achievements, he participated in the launch of the first GSM services and was responsible for launching the first Digital TV services in Europe; he played a central role in the convergence between the broadcasting world and the Internet world in the mid 90’s with the launch of the DVB-IP set of standards; and oversaw disruptive ideas being translated into new products and commercial services.

With strong knowledge of the European market, he has worked closely with the leading players in the fields of Digital TV and Multimedia Services, and with European institutions at a technical, standardization, regulatory and competition level.

Antonio joined Eutelsat in 1990 and took part in key phases of its development from an international organization to privatization in 2001 and to the IPO in 2005. He worked initially as a New Services Manager and Head of the Multimedia Services Business Unit, launching the first Internet via satellite and satellite mobility services in Europe prior to his appointment as Director of Innovation where he developed the first satellite IOT service platform and the first native satellite OTT services.

Before working at Eutelsat, Antonio worked for the European Space Agency and started his career working for Telespazio and Selenia Spazio.

Antonio was a founding member of the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) project and has been a member of its Steering Board since its inception in 1993.

Antonio has a Doctorate in Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Pisa. He is fluent in Italian, English and French.

Rowan de Pomerai leads the technology strategy and delivery for the DPP, the media industry’s business network. The DPP is the place where customers and suppliers come together to solve problems and create opportunities.
Rowan has an MEng in Electronic Engineering with Media Technology from the University of York, and has delivered transformative change in his roles at some of the UK’s biggest broadcasters and producers, including the BBC and ITV. Most recently, Rowan was Ooyala’s EMEA Director of Professional Services. He and his team delivered workflow, asset management and online video solutions to leading broadcasters, sports clubs and enterprises.

Caroline went online with a 56K modem on a Windows 95 PC with 1 GB of RAM back in the days when your landline was busy while you spent your AOL minutes chatting on ICQ.

She started her career at Europes biggest legal mp3 platform that brought artists and listeners together before MySpace was even invented and became a freelancer

when the new economy broke down. Busy with content syndication, programming, and as a webmaster for several ‘music & media’ companies she then got hooked to radio in 2007 and managed the digital business for Radio NRJ for eight years. In 2016 she was appointed Managing Director for Radioplayer in Germany and now helps all the German Radio stations onto apps, skills and dashboards.

Bio coming soon

Omar Mohout, currently Entrepreneurship Fellow at Sirris, is a former technology entrepreneur, a widely published technology author, C-level advisor to high growth startups as well as Fortune 500 companies and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Antwerp Management School and Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management.

He is author of 'Pricing Strategies for Startups', 'The Belgian Startup Landscape', ‘Crowdfunding in Belgium’, ’99 reasons why startups fail’, ‘Corporate Venturing’ and the popular 'Startup Master Class series'. A contributing author to the ‘100 Days Digital Marketing Plan’ and ‘The Future of Business’ books.

Mohout writes for VentureBeat, SaaScribe, Data News, Bloovi, StartUs and is academic contributor to the European Startup Monitor.

He delivers the following workshops for startups and scaleups: Community Engineering; Pricing strategies for startups; Lean Marketing; Setting-up and managing an Advisory board; Growth Strategies; How to go from idea to scaleup; Going international; Subscription based business models and; Cash Flow models for startups.

He is Co-chair of the Circle Of Growth; Community host for Corporate Venturing Europe; Organizer of the Growth Hacking Meetup, Co-founder of the #BeTech Community and keeps track of European funding and scaleups on scaleups.sirris.be.

Mohout is Chairman of the Strategy Advisory Board of VITO, a research and technology organization in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development; Chairman of BeCentral, the new focal point for everything digital in Belgium; Advisory Board member of the Euronext TechShare Program and; member of the Advisory Boards for Digital Transformation Conference and Internet of Things Convention.

He is an active member of the General Assembly at Startups.be and serves at the board of high growth technology companies Aproplan.com and Teamleader.eu. He joined recently the Board of Directors of venture capital fund imec.iStart. CTO of Digicono.my and co-founder of MyAdvisoryBoard.be

He is also a mentor at Nexxworks, Duval Union, Founder Institute, imec.iStart, Startit @KBC, Startathlon, Virtuology Academy, Flanders DC, Belgium Ambassador at World Startup Report, Innovator Community Ambassador for Belgium, Ambassador for MIT Innovators Under 35 Europe and Country Ambassador for UBI Global.

Mohout is a keynote speaker and panelist on technology, entrepreneurship and innovation topics at leading conferences.

Georg Thallinger (Head of business area Smart Media Solutions)
Georg holds a Dipl.-Ing. (MSc.) in Telematics from Graz University of Technology. Since 1992 he works with JOANNEUM RESEARCH, DIGITAL - Institute of Information and Communication Technologies. As the head of business area Smart Media Solutions he is responsible for the implementation of innovative solutions in the areas of content based analysis and retrieval of audiovisual media, media monitoring, traffic telematics and security. He has successfully managed numerous national and international projects in the field (e.g. DIAMANT, FascinatE, ICoSOLE).
Georg is particularly interested to apply research results from the fields stated above to new application domains and to use it for technology transfer.