Consumer Electronics Association president and CEO Gary Shapiro will deliver the keynote address at the NAB2004 Broadcast Engineering Conference, April 18 in Las Vegas.
The title of Mr. Shapiro's talk will be "Broadcasting in the Balance - A Consumer Technology Perspective."
During his tenure at CEA, which represents more than 2,300 companies in the consumer electronics industry and produces the International Consumer Electronics Show -the world’s largest annual consumer technology event, Shapiro has been an early and active leader in the launch of digital and high definition television.
He argued for its inevitability throughout the 1990s to a skeptical press. He co-founded and chaired the HDTV Model Station and served on the board and executive committee of the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC).
He is a charter inductee to the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers, and in 2003 received its highest award as the industry leader most influential in advancing HDTV. Shapiro has also maintained that digital radio is radio’s destiny. In the 1990s he addressed broadcaster groups several times suggesting they look at the growth of compact discs as an important precursor of consumers’ desires in radio.
Shapiro has headed the CEA since 1991. He also serves as Chairman of the Home Recording Rights Coalition and has testified often before Congress in support of growth of the video rental market, VCRs, home computers and audio recording equipment, including MP3 technology. Prior to joining CEA, Shapiro was an associate at the law firm of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey. He has also worked on Capitol Hill as a Congressional staffer.
For more information, please visit: www.nab.org.
