Sri Lankan TV engineer wins inaugural ABU prize

The inaugural Asia-Pacific Union Developing Broadcaster Award for Excellence has been won by Sri-Lankan broadcaster MTV.

Given for the first time by the ABU for technical excellence by a developing broadcaster, the award was accepted by Mr Tharaka Gabaja Mohotty, Director Engineering at MTV-Sri Lanka, at a special ceremony in Hanoi, Vietnam, as part of the Union’s General Assembly events.

Other broadcasters were also recognised at the ceremony during the Technical Committee meeting. 

This year’s ABU Broadcast Engineering Excellence award was presented to Mr Lee Jong Ok, Executive Managing Director for Technology at Korean Broadcasting System. The ABU Engineering Industry Excellence award was accepted by Mr Yeo Kim Pow, Senior Vice President at MediaCorp of Singapore. The ABU Green Broadcast Engineering Award was shared by two organisations, the Japanese national broadcaster NHK and the DVB Project, a worldwide alliance of about 200 companies established to agree specifications for digital media delivery systems.

In the ABU Technical Review prizes category, the award for the Best Article was jointly won by Dr Ngo Thai Tri, Nguyen Chien Thang and Nguyen Manh Duc of AVG in Vietnam, and the two Commended Articles were by Zungkon Yim, Sungho Jeon, Sanghun Kim, Sangjin Hahm and Byungsun Kim of KBS-Korea and Cemal Gazalaci, Doğuş Çifteler, İbrahim İzlem Gözükeleş and Zeynep Yeniaras Pazar of TRT Turkey.

The Technical Committee’s morning session concluded with a discussion of some key developments, issues and challenges faced by members in digital implementation.

The afternoon sessions continued with the Digital Radio Forum and the Developing Broadcasters’ Forum meetings, which were addressed by eight experts on developments in radio and TV.