Innovation and cooperation key for new ABU technology director

The ABU’s new Director of Technology hopes to foster innovation and cooperation in his new role.

Dr Amal Punchihewa says his vision as Director of ABU Technology is to be a valuable partner of ABU members and society at large, both within the Union and for the membership in general.

“I wish to foster innovation, assist members making better technical choices, enable appropriate and relevant standardisation of media creation, distribution and delivery methodologies, emphasising professional and ethical conduct from personnel,” he says. “I also want to enable life-long learning through continuous professional development courses to survive and thrive in the fragmented media market.”

He says he hopes to achieve this through regular communications, digital broadcast symposiums and regional and in-country activities.

“I intend to work closely with other sister organisations such as the EBU, ASBU, NABA, WBU and others to voice the concerns and discuss key issues faced by broadcasters today, including spectrum and rapidly changing media landscape,” he says.

ABU Secretary General Dr Javad Mottaghi has welcomed Dr Punchihewa to the ABU as he brings almost 30 years of experience in broadcast engineering at various levels.

Dr Punchihewa has a BSc in Engineering with honours from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, a Master of Electronics Engineering degree from the Technical University of Eindhoven and a PhD on compression artefacts and development of a framework.

He has worked in senior engineering positions for Sri Lanka’s national TV broadcaster, as a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering at University of Moratuwa and as CEO/Director of the national television training institute in Sri Lanka.

In 2002 he joined the Institute of Information Sciences and Technology, currently School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, at Massey University in New Zealand and is a member of several professional institutes around the world.