APEX TECH: Michael Childers & Mary Kirby spearhead high-flying session on edge caching
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APEX TECH 2023: Day Two – Hot on the heels of Mary Kirby’s Tuesday session on IFE, curated content and the future of CSPs,TECH committee veteran Michael Childers, Chief Consultant, Content and Media Strategy, Lufthansa Systems, co-moderated a panel with the Runway Girl Network founder on edge caching.
The second part of day two’s panel discussion/workshops on the convergence of IFE and IFC, the session, Edge Caching in the Evolving Content Delivery Supply Chain, featured panelists Dan Newman, Sr. Director, Content Delivery, Viasat; Philip Watson, Chief Engineer, Systems, Panasonic; Michael Stattmann, Co-Managing Director, Chief Technical Officer, ABOVE; Siegfried Luft, CEO, Netskrt; Alex Beach, Head of Media and Broadcast Market Development, iDirect; Peter Lemme, Chief Consultant, Seamless Air Alliance (SAA); Juraj Siska, Co-Founder, Ideanova; Omar Ramadan, Founder and CEO, Blockcast; and incoming TECH Committee Chair, Jonas von Krüchten, Head of Strategy and Business Development, AERQ.
Opening with some good-natured jokes about Childers and Kirby potentially breaking into song after Dr. Leader and company helped re-arrange the furniture onstage to make room for everyone, Childers set the session’s collegial tone straight away.
Noting that education was going to be one of the primary items on the session’s agenda, Childers tapped his hat to the many panelists beside him who were involved in SVTA, the Streaming Video Technology Alliance.
“As of a few months ago, we have established a liaison relationship between the APEX TECH committee and SVTA,” explained Childers. “Andy Rosen and I are the liaison members. Andy goes to all the meetings and then he tells me what they said. And then after that I get somebody to tell me what Andy just said. So I’m trying to keep up. But we do have that liaison relationship where we’re able to utilize their resources and a lot of advances are being made.”
Among the sessions highlights were discussions about whether or not the IFE-IFC convergence and the introduction of D2C IFE would mean such things as the airline turning control of the content over to the content provider, discussions about licensing, and the introduction of TECH session newcomer, Blockcast Founder and CEO, Omar Ramadan.
The panel’s spirited, wide-ranging discussions made for a hugely-educational session that definitely left its mark on at least one of the member airline executives in attendance.
“I just started in this job about a month ago but I think this is all fascinating,” said one Airline Attendee during the post-session Q&A. “What we’re looking for at [our airline] is the ability to provide as much content as we possibly can as fast, reliably and inexpensively as possible. So, I think everything that you’re talking about certainly resonates with us!”