2021 Speakers

Martin Austwick is a producer, host, composer and writer who’s been working in podcasting since 2007.

He is part of the Aria-winning Answer Me This and British Podcast Award-winning Song by Song. He’s worked with prestigious podcasts including 99% Invisible, 20,000Hz, Radio Diaries, The Allusionist, and Zig Zag. He’s the founder and lead curator of the Podcast Maker Weekend as part of the London Podcast Festival and the Podcast Maker Streams, and has delivered podcast talks at Hearsay, the Vancouver Podcast Festival, Audiocraft and for BIMM and HEFCW.

Regina is a French-born second generation Sri-Lankan with a passion for music and the technology that enables it. With a background in South Indian classical music and years of experience in traditional Indian performances, she has developed a firm resolve for increasing the cultural and gender diversity present in music technology.

Ioana has been working in broadcast and music production for 15 years. Currently supporting Global’s audio and video production teams working across radio, tv, and internet streaming. Her music production work includes sessions with artists such as Bryan Adams, Stereophonics, The Smashing Pumpkins, Jack Savoretti, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Gaz Coombes, Johnny Marr, Blossoms, The 1975 etc, as well as sound mixing for film and documentaries.

Jon has worked in radio stations since he was 16 and has been a broadcast engineer for over 20 years. He looks after studio systems for Global in London where he has helped create visual radio facilities for Capital, Heart, LBC and RadioX. He can most regularly be found navigating the strange grey area where Radio, TV and the Internet meet.

Aldred Dreyer is an experienced executive in the broadcast media sector providing media organisations with advisory services to help them migrate to a multi channel and multi platform digital environment whilst remaining competitive and doing it in a sustainable manner. Aldred is Chairman of the SA DRM Group.

Dr. Jon Francombe co-leads the Audio Team at BBC Research & Development. He has a First  Class Honours degree in Music and Sound Recording from the University of Surrey, and a  Ph.D. in perceptual audio quality evaluation from the same institution. He worked on the  Perceptually Optimised Sound Zones project (with Bang & Olufsen) and the S3A: Future Spatial Audio projects before joining the BBC in January 2018.

Jon’s research centres around audio quality evaluation methods  and the development and evaluation of new spatial audio content creation and  reproduction techniques. He has most recently been working on using orchestrated  personal devices to create immersive listening experiences.

Laura leads BBC R&D’s audience facing innovation platforms BBC Taster & BBC MakerBox, driving adoption of technology and bringing value to the BBC and the wider creative  economy through participation. She’s spent many years leading the work on growing the  BBC’s global community of practice where makers can share ideas as well as experiences  with technology.

With over 15 awards & 11 years hosting Capital FM’s breakfast show, Stephanie Hirst is one of the UKs biggest broadcasting stars. She’s been fixture on BBC & Commercial radio during the past 25 years and played at the highest level behind the mic.

Expanding into TV, she has presented for ITV’s Lorraine, C5’s Jeremy Vine on 5 Show, BBC Breakfast along with writing for The Guardian & The Independent.

Starting her career aged 12 at Radio Aire in Leeds, securing a slot on the overnight show at 16, this took her on an unbelievable journey hosting some of the biggest commercial radio shows in the UK, including the national Sunday top 40 show ‘Hit40Uk’ for 3 years, along with interviewing some of the world’s biggest stars.

She is a Trustee & Fellow of the Radio Academy, former Chair of the Student Radio Awards & recipient of an Honorary Degree from Leeds Beckett University. 

Quentin built Classic FM and its transmitter network where he also presented an award-winning programme. He led the commercial development of DAB including the the DAB chip used by Pure and many other brands. Whilst President of the WorldDAB Forum he created the DAB+ standard, was a director of Frontier Silicon and APT-X, ran BFBS TV and BFBS Technology, is a Trustee for the National Library of Wales, the British Wireless for the Blind Fund and Project Director for Quidem Productions, working on TV and radio commissions and co-hosting the Allergy Today Podcast.

Quentin is married to Annette whom he met at Devizes hospital radio, is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, owns a 1955 Velocette motorbike, takes ballet classes and shoots clay pigeons.

Jamie is a Principal Systems Engineer in BBC Technology, delivering modern broadcast systems and enabling business change for the BBC’s national radio networks, performing groups and radio outside broadcasts.  He received a MEng (Hons) degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Nottingham in 2002. Jamie has worked at Chrysalis Radio, Global Radio, RCS, and has been with the BBC since 2014. Amongst other recent projects, Jamie has upgraded several studios in Maida Vale and London Broadcasting House to use Networked Audio technology, and is the lead author of the BBC East Bank Studios High Level Design.

Iain McClenaghan is in his second year of BBC Research and Development’s Graduate Scheme, having joined after completing a BSc in Computer and Electronic Systems at Strathclyde University. He is currently working on evaluating whether Dialogue Enhancement technologies can improve the accessibility of TV audio.

Aimée Moulson is a Sound Engineer in the Soundlab group at Fraunhofer IIS Erlangen, Germany. She received her Bsc Degree in Music Technology from the University of Huddersfield in 2019 and a subsequent Msc, in Broadcast Engineering, from Birmingham City University in conjunction with the BBC in 2021. Her current field of work is in implementation and integration of Next Generation Audio in broadcast workflows, with an additional focus on immersive audio recording.

Radu P. Obreja is the Marketing Director of the DRM Consortium. He has extensive experience in Business Development, Marketing and PR having worked in several industries for more than 30 years. Radu Obreja is a member of the DRM Steering Board and is actively promoting the roll-out of the DRM standard in Asian countries, as well as in South Africa.

Ruxandra Obreja has been the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) Consortium Chairman since 2008. She is representing and enjoying the support of both  Encompass Digital Media Services and the BBC on the Steering Board of the  Consortium, a not for profit international organisation, with members on all  continents. 

In the last few years Ruxandra has been deeply involved in the promotion of  digital radio all over the world after a career spent at the BBC World Service  where she worked as a journalist, editor, commissioner of English programmes  and as Head of business development. She studied in Romania and UK,  writing, presenting and producing for radio and TV.  

In March 2008 Ruxandra was first elected Chairman of the DRM Consortium  with the avowed aim of ensuring that the various stakeholders work towards  the same goal: the global and mass scale take up of the DRM standard. Ruxandra was unanimously re-elected several times to this position, the last  time in April 2020. Ruxandra has spoken at key broadcasting conferences,  has organised and run workshops and written articles promoting digital radio  and DRM. 

She was presented with a prestigious Romanian award for her work in the  media with particular emphasis on digital radio.

As well as being the creator and host of the nightly syndicated radio show, 10 Most Wanted, Gav is also co-founder and CTO of Aiir, working with radio stations internationally to power their websites, mobile apps and studio interactivity.

He was previously heard on the UK’s Galaxy and Bauer networks.

Dilani is a Junior Software Engineer at Herotech8, a robotics company based in Cranfield, working alongside the technical delivery team to support growing technical requirements and building the products and services. She recently completed a Software Engineering Degree Apprenticeship with the BBC and Queen Mary University of London. 

Winner of the IET Horizons Bursary Award early in her apprenticeship, Dilani is a passionate STEM Ambassador. She has continued to win awards for her dedication to promoting STEM, including the Paul Fletcher Award and the STEM Inspirational Technician of the Year Award. Dilani is a finalist of the IET’s 2021 Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award.

As one of the founders of The Active Bystander Training Company, Scott delivers training and appears at conferences and events demonstrating psychological and assertiveness techniques which are highly effective in challenging unacceptable behaviours. 

Scott is a former Editor at BBC News and Current Affairs and a specialist in language, influence and persuasion.  His book, You Need This Book to Get What You Want (published by Simon & Schuster), is a globally published and widely translated guide to improving your powers of persuasion.

The Active Bystander Training Company operates globally in three languages. Its clients include listed companies, government departments, universities and schools.

Rebekah Wilson is a composer, musician, technical co-founder and CEO of Source Elements. With early training as a musician and composer, Rebekah has toured as a performer and lecturer around the world. As a technologist she is a core member of Source Elements, where Source-Connect was created. Over the last 15 years she has worked intimately with every aspect of music, broadcast and time-based media in relation to remote production and collaboration. In 2018, Rebekah completed her Masters in the topic of Networked Music Performance, merging two passions: music technology and network technology. Her research promotes a future where increasingly sophisticated internet and music technologies emerge, bringing a world made recently more distant from each other, closer together with music and rich audio and video applications.

Ann is a radio producer-turned broadcast engineer who specialises in all things studios and workflow. Equally happy making programmes as running broadcast infrastructure projects, her career so far has included 12 years at the BBC, teaching journalism in New Zealand and training broadcast engineers and producers in South Sudan. She also travels the world as the workflow consultant for Broadcast Bionics. After several years as a volunteer, she formed TBC Media Ltd. with two friends to take over the running of Radio TechCon in 2016. Outside of work, Ann can be found fitting parents with baby slings, drinking gin, and eating chocolate (not necessarily all at once.)

Aradhna runs Clockhouse Media working across broadcasting, media, film and events. She formerly worked at the BBC for 12 years, which she joined as a radio engineer, looking after the studios and production areas for the BBC’s national radio networks. Aradhna subsequently trained engineers and technical staff on new studios, systems and workflows in the purpose built broadcasting centres at Media City UK, Salford and New Broadcasting House, London. She led a number of large-scale projects, including the launch of national television channels for the BBC’s coverage of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and led the technology strategy for BBC Archives, managing their project portfolio. Aradhna now works with a number of clients on projects including broadcast project management, digital and diversity engagement strategy and media event production.