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Leonardo ChiariglioneItalian engineer
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Content:
- Biography of Leonardo Chiariglione
- Early Life and Education
- Work at CSELT
- Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
- Contributions to European Digital Projects
- International Standardization Initiatives
- Later Career
- Later Life and Achievements
Biography of Leonardo Chiariglione
Leonardo Chiariglione, an Italian engineer, was one of the key driving forces behind several initiatives that contributed to the development of media technologies and digital business as we know them today.

Early Life and Education
Chiariglione was born in 1943 and obtained a master's degree in electronic engineering from the Polytechnic of Turin in 1967. He then went on to earn his doctorate from the University of Tokyo in 1973, where he also learned to speak Japanese. In addition to Japanese, Chiariglione is fluent in six languages, including English and French.

Work at CSELT
From March 1971 to July 2003, Chiariglione was actively involved in the activities of CSELT, the corporate research center of the telecommunications company 'Telecom Italia mobile.' He worked his way up to the position of vice president of the center, which was renamed 'Telecom Italia Lab' in 2001.

Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
Chiariglione gained the most recognition in 1988 when he founded a group of experts known as the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). The group consisted of over 300 experts representing 20 countries and various industries. Together, they developed the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards, which sparked a digital audiovisual revolution. These standards are now widely recognized and used worldwide for movie viewing and recording, video conferencing, and more.
Contributions to European Digital Projects
Chiariglione also played a significant role in various European digital projects. He was involved in the IVICO program, which aimed to study the cost-effective integration of video codecs. He participated in the COMIS program, which supported the development of the MPEG-1 standard for digital audio and video compression. Additionally, he contributed to the EU 625 project, focused on developing European hardware and software technologies for the MPEG-2 standard.
International Standardization Initiatives
Chiariglione initiated several works related to international standardization. In 1994, he established the Digital Audio-Visual Council (DAVIC), a consortium dedicated to the development of digital audio and video multimedia systems. In 1996, he helped create the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA), an international organization for promoting intelligent agent technologies. For his contributions, Chiariglione received the Kilby International Award in 1998 and the John Tucker Award from IBC in 1999. He was also awarded the Consumer Electronics Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in the same year.
Later Career
In 1999, Chiariglione was offered the position of Executive Director of the Secure Digital Music Initiative, a forum where hundreds of companies gathered to develop specifications for the Secure Digital standard, particularly for music delivery techniques and technologies. In 2001, he stepped down from the role, expressing his disappointment with the conflicts among member companies that hindered the development of effective piracy prevention methods.
Later Life and Achievements
In 2004, Chiariglione was appointed as an honorary invited professor at the Information and Communication University in Daejeon, Korea. Throughout his career, he made significant contributions to the field of media technologies and digital business, leaving a lasting impact on the industry.