François Courau

François Courau was one of the few who participated in the early work on GSM, before ETSI was founded, and continued to help define our current 3G and 4G networks. He played a key role in the development of GSM, UMTS and LTE, in CEPT, ETSI and 3GPP. His name is universally associated with 3GPP RAN, although he had many roles in many committees. Working for France Telecom at first, he started in the CEPT Groupe Spéciale Mobile (GSM) Permanent Nucleus in 1987 and served as SMG3 Secretary from 1989 to 1992. He was the chairman of ETSI SMG 12 from 1998 to 2002 and ETSI MSG group from 2000 to 2009. He was also the 3GPP RAN chairman from 2001 to 2009. This award, granted posthumously, was received by François’ wife, Christiane Courau on his behalf.