Continuing the celebration of our female engineers and leaders this week as we recognize World IP Day, today we are spotlighting two outstanding engineers from our Video Lab. Like our inspiring female leaders in wireless, both are powerful role models in an industry where women remain woefully underrepresented.
Valérie Allié and Gaëlle Martin-Cocher are part of a team that is continuing InterDigital’s rich heritage of innovation in video through our work on more efficient codecs such as versatile video coding (VVC) and high efficiency video coding (HEVC), our research in cutting-edge video formats and energy aware media, and through our various leadership positions in major industry organizations.
The ability to efficiently enjoy video is increasingly important. More than 80% of global internet traffic today is video while around 250 million hours of content are streamed on Netflix every day. The seamless delivery of this data-rich content is enabled by a foundation of innovation that enables content to be streamed across a range of devices, and we’re proud of the role our leading female engineers are playing in this increasingly video-dominated world.
For example, Valérie Allié is Director of the Video Solutions Group at InterDigital, a team that is helping to enhance the quality of video that billions of us watch every day. Since 2017 Valérie has been working in volumetric video technologies addressing mixed reality (MR) experiences and augmented reality (AR) technologies and, since January of last year, she has led the Video Solutions group to support the deployment of 2D video codecs, such as VVC, and immersive codecs, including V3C/V-PCC and V3C/MIV.
In addition to her long experience in managing research labs, Valérie has spent five years in technology transfer and licensing. Her current research focus explores innovations in the delivery of SDR and Advanced HDR technologies, deployments of 2D VVC codecs, and research collaborations with partners like Philips to bolster contributions to volumetric video codecs enabling more immersive and XR use cases.
Also from our video team, Gaëlle Martin-Cocher is Senior Director of Research and Innovation, leading InterDigital’s research on immersive video standards. Gaëlle is also Vice-Chair of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), which advises the ITU-T study groups on issues including ICT service provision, economic and policy implications, future networks and cloud, content delivery platforms, broadband cable and TV, and the Internet of Things.
Gaëlle also serves as a TSAG representative in the IEC SMB / ISO TMB / ITU-T Standardization Programme Coordination Group, responsible for identifying strategic areas of coordination between the three organizations when new fields of technical activity are proposed. Her leadership in the industry is a clear sign of the high regard in which she is held by her peers.
Valérie’s and Gaëlle’s work is critical in paving the way to what we see as a new generation of connected ecosystems, where video and wireless technologies are even more closely integrated, where AI is increasingly applied, and where consumers can enjoy more immersive experiences.
As we mark World IP Day this week, we celebrate the achievements of all our female engineers and women inventors everywhere, who are pioneering new ground in innovation and laying a positive roadmap for more diverse representation in our global IP ecosystem.
