specifications
Awards & recognition
Our working group and committee members make Bluetooth technology the best it can be
Working groups have been the driving force behind Bluetooth® technology, delivering innovations that help make the Internet of Things (IoT) a reality.
Every year, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) celebrates the hard work and commitment of working groups, committee members, and contributors who have been recognized by their peers as making a difference in advancing Bluetooth technology. Thank you to the winners, and to all of our working group and committee members, for their dedication and contribution this year.
Leadership Award
Jeff Solum
Starkey Hearing Technologies
Hearing Aid Working Group
Jeff Solum currently serves as Chair of the Hearing Aid Working Group. Prior to 2024, Jeff served as Vice Chair of the Hearing Aid Working Group since its inception. Jeff was the co-author of the LE Isochronous Channels feature. He was also the lead author of the LE Connection Subrating feature. Jeff co-authored the Periodic Advertising Synchronization Transfer feature that allows assistant devices to direct audio devices to find broadcasts. Jeff was a key contributor to many of the Generic Audio profiles and services. Jeff’s membership includes the Hearing Aid Working Group, Generic Audio Working Group, Core Specification Working Group, and the Bluetooth Architectural Review Board.
Finalists
| Szymon Slupik Silvair, Inc. | Shirin Ebrahimi-Taghizadeh, PhD Microsoft Corporation |
Innovator of the Year Award
Chris White
Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
Audio, Telephony, and Automotive Working Group
After playing rock ‘n’ roll full time for a few years, Chris was lucky enough to secure a role at Dolby Laboratories helping customers implement Dolby technology into TVs, A/V receivers, and smartphones. Later, Chris served as the lead Bluetooth® engineer for Dolby’s first-ever consumer product, the Dolby Dimension headphone. He currently serves as Dolby’s sole full-time Bluetooth engineer, focusing on enabling next-generation wireless audio experiences.
Finalists
| Oren Haggai Intel Corporation | Jeff Solum Starkey Hearing Technologies | Erik Anderlind KiteSpring Inc. |
Outstanding Technical Contributor Award
Asbjørn Sæbø
Nordic Semiconductor ASA
Hearing Aid Working Group
Asbjørn Sæbø has been working with Bluetooth® Low Energy at Nordic Semiconductor since 2006, starting with what became Bluetooth Low Energy. For many years, Asbjørn led the development of Nordic’s Bluetooth Low Energy stack. Currently, he leads Nordic’s Bluetooth LE Audio work. At the Bluetooth SIG, he participates in the Generic Audio, Hearing Aid, and Audio, Telephony, and Automotive Working Groups but has also contributed to other groups.
Finalists
| Piotr Winiarczyk Silvair, Inc. |
Special Recognition for Outstanding Leadership in BARB
Leif-Alexandre Aschehoug
Nordic Semiconductor ASA
Leif-Alexandre Aschehoug is a principal R&D engineer within Nordic Semiconductor’s software department based in Trondheim, Norway. Leif has been a valued contributor to the Medical Devices Working Group and Sports and Fitness Working Group. Leif was the Medical Devices Working Group Chair and then the Sports and Fitness Working Group Chair before becoming Nordic’s councilor in the Bluetooth Architectural Review Board (BARB). He has been the BARB Chair since 2020. Leif joined Nordic Semiconductor in 2008 after working for nine years in France and has been working as a software developer and project leader. Outside of work, Leif is a private pilot and enjoys the mountains in all seasons, on foot, by bike, and on any type of skis.
Special Recognition for Outstanding Contribution to the Qualification Process Improvements and QPRD
Alicia Courtney
Broadcom Corporation
An R&D SW Quality Engineer at Broadcom, Alicia is the Chair of the Bluetooth Qualification Review Board (BQRB) and Vice Chair of both the Bluetooth Test and Interoperability (BTI) Committee and the Alignment and Process Improvement Committee (APIC). The most significant contributions of the last 12 months include qualification and testing updates due to Qualification Program Reference Document (QPRD) v3 as well as Bluetooth Core Specification v6.0.
Outstanding IOP Contributor Appreciation Award
Intel Corporation
Audio, Telephony, and Automotive Working Group
The team from Intel Corporation— Vlad Tsigan, Chethan Tumkur Narayan, and Luiz Von Dentz —is recognized for their outstanding contributions towards the validation of the Gaming Audio Profile Specification. The team developed prototype testing to significantly increase coverage of simultaneously rendered and captured gaming settings and support for full-band microphone capture coverage in higher quality and lower latency.
Infineon Technologies AG
Automation Working Group
Victor Zhodzishsky from Infineon Technologies AG is recognized for his outstanding contributions towards the validation of the Industrial Measurement Devices Profile and Service Specifications.
Broadcom Corporation
Core Specification Working Group
The team from Broadcom Corporation— Shawn Ding, Irene Fan, Shanshan Jiang, Sean Lin, Yunkai Qian, Balakumar Ramalingam, Wen-Hsin Wang, and Lewis Weng—is recognized for their outstanding contributions towards the validation of the Core Specification 6.0 enhancements including Channel Sounding, Decision Based Advertising Filtering, Enhancements for ISOAL, Frame Space Update, LL Extended feature set, having contributed more than 25 percent of the results entered.
Google LLC
Hearing Aid Working Group
The team from Google LLC— Benson Li, Jack He, and Rongxuan Liu—is recognized for their outstanding contributions towards the validation of the Broadcast Audio Uniform Resource Identifier Specification, having contributed more than 37 percent of the results entered.
Special Recognition for Channel Sounding Remote IOP Testing
| Fabien Duvoux Ellisys | Kyle Penri-Williams Ellisys | Clement Vacheron Ellisys | Tim Newton RF Creations | Peter Ford RF Creations |
Special Recognition for Channel Sounding IOP Support
| Qi Jiang Google LLC | Shawn Ding Broadcom Corporation | Angel Polo Broadcom Corporation |
Bluetooth SIG appreciation – Recognition of IOP Participation
Core Specification 6.0 Enhancements
Channel Sounding
| Yann Ly-Gagnon Apple Inc. | Roman Chernobelsky Apple Inc. | David Levy Apple Inc. | Ido Gross Apple Inc. | Tomer Hershkovitz Apple Inc. | Balakumar Ramalingam Broadcom Corporation |
| Irene Fan Broadcom Corporation | Lewis Weng Broadcom Corporation | Sean Lin Broadcom Corporation | Shanshan Jiang Broadcom Corporation | Shawn Ding Broadcom Corporation | Wen-Hsin Wang Broadcom Corporation |
| Yunkai Qian Broadcom Corporation | Fabien DUVOUX Ellisys | Kyle Penri-Williams Ellisys | Clement Vacheron Ellisys | Qi Jiang Google LLC | Joe Chang Litepoint |
| Qiang Fu Litepoint | Tushar Patel Litepoint | Alexandre Dauphinais Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Ivan Iushkov Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Erik Semb Omre Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Thomas Johansen Nordic Semiconductor ASA |
| Erik Sandgren Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Ryan Chu Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Pascal Bernard NXP B.V. | James Zhang NXP B.V. | Endy Qin NXP B.V. | Mihai-Ionut Stanciu NXP B.V. |
| Luc Revardel NXP B.V. | Wenbo Qi NXP B.V. | Olivier Jean NXP B.V. | Santiago Garcia NXP B.V. | John Vandermeer NXP B.V. | Khurram Waheed NXP B.V. |
| Jerome Brillant NXP B.V. | Hassan Elmadi Packetcraft, Inc. | Ram Mohan Korukonda Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Mayank Batra Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Rachelle Chen Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Chris Holbrow Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. |
| Mohit Maheshwari Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Naveen Kumar Reddy Kanakanti Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Tim Newton RF Creations | Peter Ford RF Creations | Kenton Payne Rohde & Schwarz Services Ltd | Trine Jensen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. |
| Sune Timm Simonsen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Allan Madsen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Lauri Hintsala Silicon Laboratories | Wesam Koraim Silicon Laboratories | Karim Mokhtar Synopsys, Inc. | Ahmed Ismail Synopsys, Inc. |
| Priyanka Gupta Teledyne Lecroy, Inc. | Rishu Kumar Teledyne Lecroy, Inc. | Varun Gopalan Teledyne Lecroy, Inc. | Yuexin Liu Telink Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd | Sihui Wang Telink Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd | Fan Qinghua Telink Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd |
| Jan Slupski Telink Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd |
Decision Based Advertising Filtering
| Shanshan Jiang Broadcom Corporation | Shawn Ding Broadcom Corporation | Fabien DUVOUX Ellisys | Kyle Penri-Williams Ellisys | Clement Vacheron Ellisys | Joseph Robert LTIMINDTREE LIMITED |
| Wenbo Qi NXP B.V. |
Enhancements for ISOAL
| Shanshan Jiang Broadcom Corporation | Shawn Ding Broadcom Corporation | Fabien DUVOUX Ellisys | Kyle Penri-Williams Ellisys | Clement Vacheron Ellisys | Thorkild Pedersen GN Hearing A/S |
| ChaoYang Wu Infineon Technologies AG | Vishal Dhull Intel Corporation | Joseph Robert LTIMINDTREE LIMITED | Sam Geeraerts NXP B.V. | Raoul Grenier NXP B.V. |
Frame Space Update
| Sean Lin Broadcom Corporation | Shawn Ding Broadcom Corporation | Fabien DUVOUX Ellisys | Kyle Penri-Williams Ellisys | Clement Vacheron Ellisys | Joseph Robert LTIMINDTREE LIMITED |
| Johan Stridkvist Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Erik Sandgren Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Antonios Prodromakis Renesas | Mesh Davaraj Renesas | Theodora Dimitropoulou Renesas | Frederik Jensen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. |
| Marcus Jensen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Søren Andersen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Karim Mokhtar Synopsys, Inc. | Ahmed Ismail Synopsys, Inc. |
LL Extended Feature Set
| Sean Lin Broadcom Corporation | Shanshan Jiang Broadcom Corporation | Shawn Ding Broadcom Corporation | Fabien DUVOUX Ellisys | Kyle Penri-Williams Ellisys | Clement Vacheron Ellisys |
| Joseph Robert LTIMINDTREE LIMITED | Johan Stridkvist Nordic Semiconductor ASA | Frederik Jensen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Marcus Jensen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. | Søren Andersen Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. |
Gaming Audio Profile
| Vlad Tsigan Intel | Chethan Tumkur Narayan Intel | Luiz Von Dentz Intel | Nidhi Sakaleshpur Venkatesh LTIMindTree Limited | Samuel Paveza Microsoft Corporation | Emil Gydesen Nordic Semiconductor ASA |
| Didier Lauwerys NXP B.V. | Peter Ford RF Creations | Anish Singh Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Parameshwar Kengond Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Sushil Deka Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. | Tarun Goswami Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. |
| Ryo Takai Sony Group Corporation | Hiroki Makino Sony Group Corporation |
Broadcast Audio URI
| Thorkild Pedersen GN Hearing A/S | Benson Li Google LLC | Jack He Google LLC | Rongxuan Liu Google LLC | Peter Ford RF Creations | Mats Lennartsson Sony Group Corporation |
| Viswanth Bhagavatula Sony Group Corporation |
Industrial Measurement Devices Profile and Service
| Franz Springer Hoffmann SE | Victor Zhodzishsky Infineon Technologies AG |
