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SOVO Technologies Appoints Its New CEO

By Madhubanti Rudra
TMCnet Contributor

SOVO Technologies Inc., a spin-off of Centre de recherche informatique de Montréal (CRIM), has announced the hiring of new Chief Executive Officer. Jacques Ouellet, chairman of the board of SOVO Technologies and CRIM's vice president of research, development and marketing has declared that Serge Forest (News - Alert) has been appointed as chief executive officer of SOVO Technologies. Forest will take up his duties on May 17.

Forest has an impressive track record. Until recently, he served as vice president of marketing for Sangoma Technologies (News - Alert), which specializes in voice and data products for communication applications. In his capacity as co-founder, Forest was appointed president and chief operating officer of Paraxip Technologies in 2003; the company was sold to Sangoma in 2008. Prior to that, Forest held a managerial position at Nuance Communications as well as various positions at Nortel (News - Alert). He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from Montreal's École Polytechnique.

According to industry experts, within a few year's time, the TV entertainment industry in the developed countries will undergo a significant transformation with the incorporation of mandatory subtitling for all TV programs broadcast within their jurisdictions. With the increase in the number of hearing impaired audience across the globe, certain countries are expected to make subtitle mandatory for the internet contents as well. All these are adding to the importance of speech recognition technology and CRIM is all set to make the most of the opportunities that this emerging technology has to offer in the upcoming days. The company markets a state-of-the-art subtitling system, STDirect through one of its spin-off, eSOVO Technologies Inc.

STDirect's initial application pertains to the coded subtitling of TV programs for the deaf and hearing impaired. The system is based on a combination of CRIM developed technologies, including its speech recognition technology.

CRIM is one of the few companies that pioneered the research and development in the field of speech recognition and CRIM's speech recognition technology is considered one of the best in the industry.  Daniel Blanche, CRIM's chief executive officer, said: "CRIM researchers' work in the field of automatic speech recognition is recognized worldwide. It should be noted that CRIM began developing this research area 25 years ago, and its expertise is unquestioned. Moreover, SOVO, and its STDirect application, is a spin-off from CRIM. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Pierre Nelis, Vice-President and Managing Director of Inno-Centre, one of our partners from the outset, for serving as SOVO's interim CEO."

For the right head start for its off-shoot SOVO, CRIM has roped on  Inno-Centre, which offers a range of  professional and business services, including technical and commercial evaluations, business coaching and international marketing assistance to the start-up and growth of companies that use world-class technologies.

"In keeping with our mission to foster the development of start-up companies, Inno-Centre's specialists developed SOVO's business plan and provided support during all of the implementation stages, culminating in the establishment of this brand new company. Mission accomplished!" Claude Martel, Inno-Centre's president and chief executive officer, said.

SOVO's newly appointed CEO is optimistic about SOVO's potentials and future business opportunities in the realm of subtitle industry.  "I believe that the company's future prospects are very bright thanks to our team's unique expertise and the impressive technology developed by CRIM, to say nothing of ever-growing market demand. I witnessed SOVO's highly successful efforts at the 2010 Winter Olympics as exclusive service provider for all of the French-language channels. The team produced 745 hours of subtitles broadcast live over a 17-day period-an impressive achievement! I look forward to contributing to SOVO's development, drawing on my IT experience and my passion for helping start-up organizations become international players and leaders in their sectors," Forest said.

The CRIM management too is optimistic about this high profile appointment. "We are very pleased to welcome Serge. His exemplary career and remarkable achievements are aligned with the development goals of a start-up organization such as SOVO. Based on the programming hours broadcast on all types of networks, the value of the global close captioning market for the hearing impaired exceeds one billion dollars annually. In view of the fact that regulatory requirements with respect to subtitling vary significantly from country to country, the current penetration rate is certainly less than 50 percent," Ouellet, the CRIM chief said.