He was a professor of the Medical Electronics Laboratory and Sensory Information Laboratory at the Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University from 1989 to 2002.

He was a professor at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo until 2010.He is a research fellow at Institute of Gerontology at the University of Tokyo. His research interests include the analysis of the human sensory functions and the design of sensory aid devices. Some of these devices have been used for the blind as well as the deaf, and also have been applied to virtual reality and robotic systems. He published books such as “Design of Voice Typewriter”, “Sound-based Assistive Technology”, “Evaluation of Virtual Reality”, and “Challenge of Assistive Technology”.

Peter Olaf Looms, chairman of ITU-T FG AVA, is an international consultant. Before retiring in April, 2011 he worked with the public service broadcaster DR for more than 30 years on audience research, policy and strategy, the last 5 of which were on media accessibility. He currently divides his time between international consultancy work and teaching at universities in Denmark and overseas.  He is the author of “Making Television Accessible” published by the ITU in 2011.

PhD (UMIST). Works in the CAIAC Research Centre (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain). Director of the European MA in Audiovisual Translation at UAB, http://mem.uab.es/metav/. She is an expert on Media Access content some recent publications as with recent publications Media for All: Subtitling for the Deaf, Audio Description and Sign Language (2007) Rodopi.

Co-editor with Anna Matamala Listening to Subtitles: SDHoH (2010) in Peter Lang. Co-writer with Anna Matamala and Eliana Franco of the Voice-over: An Overview (2010) in Peter Lang.

Co-guest editor with J.L. Kruger Perspectives on Audio Description (2010). Leader of numerous research projects funded by the Spanish and Catalan Gov, and the EU project ADLAB.

Leads TransMedia Catalonia http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/transmediacatalonia.

Sakai Taikichi, joined Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in 1981. He has been a reporter, Chief Director of the Television News Division, and Head of Kochi Station. In 2011, He was appointed as Head of Disaster and Safety Information Center, where he is currently engaged in improvement of disaster broadcasting.

Masahiro Shibata graduated in 1979 from the Electronics Department, Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University, from which he also received his degree of Master in 1981 and Ph. D. in 2003. He joined NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) in 1981, and has been engaged in research and development on information retrieval technology, image database and contents handling systems. He also contributed to standardization activities of MPEG(ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11), SMPTE(Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), FIPA(Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) and ARIB(Association of Radio Industries and Broadcast). Now he is a director of the Human and Information Science research division of the Science and Technology Research Laboratories.

Hiroshi Sonoe, joined Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in 1990.

Since 1991, he has been engaged in developing TV and monitor products.

He is currently a manager of the engineering group in Audio Visual Display Solutions
Department, where he is in charge of developing domestic TV products.

Tadashi Takaoka holds presidency of All Japan Association of Hard of Hearing and Late-Deafened People since 1994.

2011 a member of the task force called upon by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on “A Study towards the Age of Digital Broadcasting for Persons with Disabilities.”

Also in the years 1996 and 2006 he served in similar commissions. Committee of A Study towards the Age of Digital Broadcasting for Persons with Disabilities, The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 1996, 2006, 2011.

Nick Tanton joined BBC Research in 1972 and has worked on digital television ever since – on teletext, video noise-reduction, standards conversion, electronic and computer graphics, HDTV, digital coding and multiplexing and access services for DTV. He has participated in various successful European collaborative projects, in EBU workstrands and in various initiatives to make television accessible to all.

He is currently Head of Technology for the BBC Switchover Help Scheme and his responsibilities include the specification and development of user-friendly receiving equipment to help older and disabled people through digital TV switchover in the UK. He also chairs the DVB subgroup TM-SUB responsible for the technical standard for the delivery of subtitles with DTV services (EN 300 743). This now includes support for the subtitling of plano-stereoscopic AV content.

Masahiro Watanabe is a senior Research Engineer, ICT Design Center, Cyber Solutions Laboratories of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT). He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in mechanical engineering and the Dr.E. degree in electronics, information, and communication engineering from Waseda University, Tokyo, in 1991, 1993, and 2003, respectively. He joined NTT Basic Research Laboratories in 1993 and studied the human auditory system. Since moving to NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories in 1999, he has been studying human-computer interaction, especially universal design and user-centered design.