Manoj A Mathew is the Territory Head at Zee Network (MENAPT). In his current role he leads the product, distribution and revenues of over a dozen pay channels in the region, 2 FTA Arabic channels and a Hindi radio station. He has over 20 years experience in the media, marketing and advertising business of which 13 are in international markets which include Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Manoj was also one of the main architects for the launch of the Zee Network’s Arabic initiative with its movie channel Zee Aflam; its general entertainment channel Zee Alwan; its Arabic language content production and of its radio business in the UAE.

He enjoys being responsible for both product and revenue side of the business, fusing content & technology, launching new products and making them commercially successful. Extensive knowledge and experience in content creation, sales, digital, distribution, and licensing. A start up specialist, he has extensive experience in project and investment appraisal, new investments, alliances, partnerships and restructuring. He constantly endeavors to fuse holistic business processes with the bottom line. Passionate about philosophy, movies and everything whisky especially single malts. He is also an avid traveler, food & beverage critique and a blogger.

Please also include what you do on the anti-piracy front. Working through Rotana and MENA Broadcast satellite Ani-Piracy coalitions to stop infringing the Arabic content via FTA channels, and centralize the authentication process for Arabic content, solving the dilemma of splitting the ownership of the negatives from the IP rights of the content.

Addy is specialized in Intellectual Property Rights (IP). He has over 12 years of experience in contentious and non-contentious IP matters, IP Management, Auditing & Valuation, Portfolio Management, Anti-Piracy, Anti-Counterfeiting and Dispute Resolution & Negotiations.

During his career span, Addy has also worked in top tier IP law firms doing work for IP rich global giants (such as Google, Intel, Shell, GSK, Harley Davidson) whilst representing them in contentious and non-contentious matters and cross border enforcement actions.

Addy speaks at various conferences on Intellectual Property, Cyber Crimes both in an out of the region. Due to his professional experiences, Addy has also been invited to present case studies in seminars and workshops organised by Interpol.

Addy is currently Senior Legal Counsel for OSN, which is MENA region’s leading pay-TV platform. As part of his role, Addy heads the IP and Anti-Piracy Legal function and works with external counsel, authorities, Hollywood studios, MPA, broadcasters, organisations and other professionals for intellectual property and content protection. During this time, Addy has initiated, prepared and managed several unique and successful copyright infringement cases in the Middle East as well as India.

Memberships and listings

• Listed by the IAM 300 publication(2018) under “World’s top 300 IP Strategists”.
• Thrice listed by the World Trade Mark Review (WTR-300) as “Top 300 in-house corporate TM professionals” in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
• Representative member for OSN to the “Intellectual Property Advisory Board” for the Dubai Economy (Dubai, under Ministry of Economy).
• Representative member for “MPAA IPTV task force” – an industry initiative.
• Representative member + speaker for ‘International Content Protection Summit’ held under the aegis of EUIPO and Sygnal Association (www.sygmal.org.pl)
• Voting member for Gulf Brand Protection Group (www.gulfbpg.com
• Voting member for AAPA (www.aapa.eu; Audio-Visual Anti-Piracy Association)

Zahra Zayat is the VP and Head of Middle East and North Africa for YuppTV. She is passionate about inventing the future of TV and revolutionizing the way TV is viewed on behalf of millions of YuppTV subscribers and users around the world. Under her leadership, YuppTV has launched in the MENA and has grown to become one of the largest OTT platforms serving South Asians in the region.

Zahra is an experienced media executive with expertise in OTT, e-commerce, digital transformation, telco partnerships, market entry strategies, technology and Analytics. Prior to joining YuppTV, Zahra has held senior leadership roles at OSN and Deloitte.

Dr. Guillaume Forbin is Director – Platform and Content Security at OSN, based in Dubai. He is responsible for securing OSN Pay TV distribution platform and premium exclusive content against a wide variety of piracy threats. His team won the BroadcastProME Innovation Award in 2018 for OSN Anti-Piracy solution.

Prior to OSN, he led The Walt Disney Company content security efforts throughout EMEA by formulating and executing a regional content protection strategy for distribution deals. Guillaume also participated in the development of multiple Sagemcom devices, but also Sony Bravia TV sets throughout his career.

Guillaume holds a PhD in Computer Vision from the University of Surrey as well as a MSc in Computer Science from the University of La Rochelle.

Robert Lakos is the founder of the Deleel TV project which is dedicated to improving TV for the mass markets throughout MENA. He believes the key to a healthy TV ecosystem is vertical cooperation and coordination all the way from content and transmission through to the set-top-boxes that output to television sets in consumers’ homes.

Robert is currently working as a consultant to Eutelsat for the roll-out of the Eutelsat’s FTA EPG project in MENA. This is a new service which will launch later in 2019 providing consumers with a rich 7-day EPG service for all FTA channels at the 7/8ºW and Hotbird locations.

Robert got his start in satellite television in 1990 when he joined the sales department of US based EchoStar. He held an array of senior positions at EchoStar and its pay TV sister company Dish Network, covering sales and distribution, content acquisition, STB development, mobile television, terrestrial microwave distribution, and business development. More recently before moving on to launch the Deleel TV project he was Chief Commercial Officer of Dubai based low cost pay TV operator My-HD.

Throughout Robert’s career in satellite TV, the Middle East North African region has been a prominent part of his portfolio. His regional expertise ranges from Arabic language TV channels to souq-based distribution of set-top-boxes.

Robert studied Arabic at AUC in Cairo, Egypt, holds a BA from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, and an MBA from ASU’s Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, Arizona. He is fluent in Arabic, French, German and Swahili.

Farah Ramadan is Digital Planning Manager for SHAHID at MBC Group. With 16 years of experience in content, promotion, branding and media planning .She oversees a team of designers, curators, and publishers, and works closely with acquisition on buying based on trends and viewership. Since 2015 she also oversees the digital Antipiracy Department in MBC, protecting content on UGC platforms and social media, removing infringing apps and content using a variety of tools. MBC’s antipiracy team increased the number of takedowns of pirated content by 900% in the past three years.

Ahmed Abbas is the founder and CEO of DigiSay. Abbas has more than 16 years of experience in marketing and sales; having worked with various multinationals world wide. Before DigiSay Ahmed was a Marketing Manager at NetApp Germany based in Munich handling Europe, Middle East and Africa. He also played a pivotal role in producing and developing major TV shows in the MENA region as well as various types of digital content. Abbas holds an MBA in International Management from the European School of Business in Germany and is an alumni of the German School in Cairo.

A Senior executive technologist with practical 30+ years experiences in Media entertainment, Telecommunication, Broadcast business, Digital Media, Excutive managment & investment .

Has PhD in Telecommunication. Author of two renowned books in Telecommunication and Mass communications, a publisher of five international scientific research papers and an owner of two registered patiences. A member and a consultant for various telecom and broadcast industry leaders.

Dr. Naser solution architected/ Aljazeera Sports … and consultant for more than 83 international TV broadcast channels along with multi-dimentionals media and telecom facilities.

As MD & CTO of U-TO Solutions, Sumit is an avid technology enthusiast who leads a company that merges technology, innovation and business knowledge to help its clients achieve more.

Sumit is partnered by a dynamic team of skilled experts, who build industry-leading software solutions to manage content rights, usage, royalties, and other critical facets that let rights owners monetise their assets fully. Furthermore, in recent years, Sumit has steered the company towards new business in Ad Sales, helping clients manage linear and digital ad inventory.

In U-TO’s quest to add value to rights owners by enforcing compliance in both linear and digital, the company has launched a slate of technology-powered services with its partners on the anti-piracy front.