SOMEONE YOU SHOULD KNOW…Giri Mandyam, Qualcomm

Posted on June 1, 2017 in ATSC News

Giri Mandyam, Chairman of the ATSC’s S34-3 Ad Hoc Group, is the Chief Security Architect of IoT and Automotive for Qualcomm. Under Mandyam’s leadership, S34-3 has successfully completed its work on the service layer definition. He’s also been an active participant in S34-4, which oversees development of the ATSC 3.0 runtime environment. Previously, Mandyam served as an official liaison between the ATSC and the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).

Mandyam says he’s excited about the prospects for interoperability between ATSC 3.0 and the Internet. “Because the IP (Internet protocol) based ATSC 3.0 standard is compatible with the Web, consumers will have the opportunity to experience live TV services that are augmented by many of the personalized features they have grown accustomed to with Internet streaming services.

“This includes personalized content recommendations, relevant ads, and the rendering of content according to individual preferences. Today, even in smart TV sets, the experience between live TV and the Internet is often bifurcated. Hopefully, with innovations like ATSC 3.0 there won’t be any perceptible difference between the two experiences,” Mandyam says.

Having been a long-time participant in the W3C, which is in charge of developing web standards, Mandyam felt that ATSC 3.0 “would be an opportunity to get in the ground floor

of something monumental, because Next Gen TV is one of the first major technologies to properly marry the web with live TV services over a broadcast medium.”

Mandyam has been in the wireless industry for nearly 25 years, including many years developing the first cellular radio technologies capable of supporting IP-based data services. More recently, at Qualcomm, he’s been focused on Cloud-enabled mobile data services and end-to-end security.

While he worked on the service layer definition of the new ATSC 3.0 standard, it’s the transport layer that impresses him most.

“The new transport layer, specifically the ROUTE protocol that’s been adopted for ATSC 3.0, ensures that a Web experience can be achieved with broadcasting, he explains. “Although there are systems such as HbbTV that can also provide a Web experience, such solutions did not address how a live TV service can leverage an off-the-shelf Web browser. “

Mandyam and his wife (who is on the anesthesiology faculty at the University of California San Diego), have two children – a 12-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter.

He enjoys skiing with his children (“although I am not very good at it”) and golf (“also not very good at it”) and regular fitness activities. Mandyam also has served as assistant coach for his son’s robotics team for the past four years.

Posted in ATSC News