2019 ETSI Fellows unveiled at General Assembly award ceremony

Sophia Antipolis, 3 April 2019

On 2 April during the 73rd General Assembly dinner, ETSI unveiled its three 2019 ETSI Fellows for their outstanding contribution to ETSI’s work. Awards were granted to Roberto Macchi, David Chater-Lea and Friedhelm Hillebrand.

The award ceremony took place in the beautiful Domaine de Barbossi, a resort comprising high class hotel and restaurants, a golf and tennis course and a country club, located in Mandelieu la Napoule on the Côte d’Azur.

Fellows 2019 getting their award at April GAOur Fellowship programme awards key contributors to ETSI’s work. We are really proud to be able to reward three individuals who have been instrumental in building ETSI’s reputation in technologies that are used around the world today” said Luis Jorge Romero, the ETSI Director-General, in his opening speech.

Dr. Macchi apologized for not being able to attend the award ceremony. Roberto Macchi has been involved in ETSI for more than 20 years in the fixed radio systems working group of the ETSI Technical Committee on Access, Terminals, Transmission and Multiplexing (TC ATTM) as an active member and a Chair. As an internationally recognized expert in fixed radio systems, he was also involved in interdisciplinary issues and interworking activities with ITU-R, CEPT or administrations. Thanks to his globally recognized expertise, ETSI Harmonised Standards for fixed radio services and microwave point-to-point and point to multipoint systems are considered as The worldwide reference by non-European telecommunication authorities and microwave equipment manufacturers. Roberto Macchi currently works as a Standards and Regulations expert in SIAE Microelettronica. As a Chair, and beyond his technical competencies, he has proved to be a very good mediator.

David Chater-Lea has been a key member of the TETRA standards community since 1994, when he joined the ETSI group who designed the TETRA security standards. David has spent over 35 years of his career in mission critical communications and has tirelessly supported the development of ETSI standards and needs of the industry in other standards bodies and industry fora. In ETSI TCCE, David is leading the effort to develop interoperability between TETRA and 3GPP standards so that the TETRA standards are ready in time for the user communities' needs for interoperability between existing TETRA systems and users operating on 3GPP systems. A well-respected member of the critical communications community globally, he is probably the person who has done the most to evolve the standards from TETRA into critical communications over broadband. 

Friedhelm Hillebrand began his career at Deutsche Telekom. He became project manager for the German public packet switching network. From 1984 to 1992, Fred and his team contributed to the GSM standard and led the implementation of Deutsche Telekom’s GSM network. Friedhelm chaired a Working Party for non-voice services of GSM. Notably, he proposed inclusion of SMS that would be supported by all networks and native on every mobile device. From 1996 to 2000 Fred was Chair of ETSI’s Technical Committee SMG (Special Mobile Group) which included 11 sub-committees and 50 working groups. SMG elaborated the GSM evolution and the basic parameters of 3G, integrating contributions from partners around the globe. Fred successfully initiated the creation of 3GPP as future global standardization body for mobile communication. Since 2004, Fred has provided consulting services concerning patents in mobile communication. 

The ETSI Fellowship programme rewards individuals who have made an outstanding personal contribution to ETSI, to building the work of ETSI, or raising its reputation in specific sectors of standardization.  Any individual representative of an ETSI member may propose a candidate for an ETSI Fellowship. Fellowships are awarded each year by an Award Committee composed of the ETSI General Assembly Chair and Vice-Chairmen, the ETSI Board Chair and the ETSI Director-General.