Dr. Klaus Illgner-Fehns received his diploma degree in electrical engineering with an emphasize on communications engineering at Aachen University of Technology, Germany, in 1991. Subsequently he got employed as a research assistant at the Institut for Communications Engineering, RWTH Aachen, where he conducted research in the area of digital image processing, and coding and transmission of digital video. In January 1998 he earned a doctorate with summa cum laude in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen for his thesis on "Scalable Video Coding".
The development of algorithms for processing of digital images in digital cameras and the implementation on specifically designed DSP based embedded systems on chip, as well as contributions to the design of those chips were the main topics of his work at Texas Instruments, Dallas, USA.
In July 2000 Dr. Illgner joined Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, in Munich, where he was responsible for a team developing new technologies in the field of multimedia communications in heterogeneous networks. Technologies for the utilization of networks with new service concepts, in particular including broadcast, were on the agenda. As a technical consultant he supported at management level the development of a company position on mobile broadcast and got the company involved in the relevant technical fora.
In November 2004 he was appointed managing director of the Institut für Rundfunktechink (IRT), Munich. As research institute of the public broadcasters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland the main focus is on building up strong expertise in new broadcast and media technologies but also telecommunications knowledge. IRT’s aim is to support the European broadcast community in technical issues including the economical impact on the market. In parallel he started to position the IRT internationally as a research and technology company.
