Honorary Fellowship for Nick Wells
Last week in Geneva, on the occasion of the 87th meeting of the DVB Steering Board, Nick Wells was awarded with Honorary Fellowship of the DVB Project. The award recognised his significant contribution to the work of the Project, both as chair of the Technical Module and, in particular, his leadership of the development of the DVB-T2 specification.
Delivering DVB-T2
Formerly of BBC, Nick was active in DVB for many years and was instrumental in several activities. His crowning achievement was leading the technical group that developed DVB-T2. His efficient management of the group delivered a technically solid specification within the required time frame, allowing the first service based on the standard to go live in the UK in 2009 (Freeview HD).
Nick’s work on DVB-T2 was widely appreciated. In 2010, he received the IBC Innovation Award and won the IEEE International Symposium on Consumer Electronics Engineering Excellence Award.
Chairing the TM
For many years Nick was one of the vice-chairs of DVB’s Technical Module (TM). He was therefore the ideal candidate to replace Ulrich Reimers as chair, when the latter stepped down in 2012. In his three years of chairmanship he oversaw nine TM meetings and read 548 TM documents, of which 48 became ETSI specifications. In 2015 Nick retired from BBC, which also ended his term as TM Chair.
DVB Executive Director Peter Siebert reflected: “For three years I had the pleasure of supporting Nick Wells in my capacity as secretary to the TM. We would meet the evening before every meeting and I was always impressed how meticulously Nick had prepared. Both the TM and DVB in general benefited greatly from his leadership.”
Photo: Peter MacAvock (DVB Chairman), Nick Wells and Peter Siebert (DVB Executive Director)
