Owner & Managing Director, Prompt! Speech Applications
Belgium
- Current
-
- Senior Program Manager, Speech Applications at The Ring Ring Company
- Linguistic Advisor at Odiogo
- Owner & Managing Director at Prompt! Speech Applications (Self-employed)
- Past
-
- Researcher at University of Antwerp, Belgium
- Group Manager Voice Application Development at MagicPhone, a Tellme Company
- Language Modelling Engineer & Team Manager at Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products
- System Manager & Web Project Manager at Allmansland
- Language Engineer at Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems
- Education
-
- Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Belgium
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
- Connections
-
164
connections
- Industry
- Information Technology and Services
- Websites
Frederik Durant’s Summary
Frederik Durant, MBA has more than 10 years experience as a software developer, project leader and manager in the field of language, speech and Internet technology. Until further notice, he is the only Certified VoiceXML Application Developer in Belgium.
In his career, Frederik has been involved in machine translation (Siemens Nixdorf), database-driven websites (Allmansland), mass-market dictation products (L&H), speech-driven phone applications (Tellme Europe), and biomedical text mining (University of Antwerp).
Today his main ambition is to help build the speech-enabled telephony market by designing and developing compelling self-service applications in the call center domain.
Frederik is a member of ContactCentres.be, the professional organisation of Belgian Contact Centres. He was chairman of CC.be's Speech Technology Workgroup from July 2005 to February 2007, and is still an active member.
Frederik Durant’s Specialties:
Speech-enabled phone applications, based on VXML/VoiceXML. See http://www.prompt-speechapps.com/ for more detailed information. Strong focus on usability (sine qua non for speech applications) and on controlled development processes. Frederik Durant's services span the full application lifecycle, including strategic consulting, application discovery, design & development, and post-deployment tuning.
Frederik Durant’s Experience
-
Senior Program Manager, Speech Applications
The Ring Ring Company
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Telecommunications industry)
May 2007 — Present (1 year 3 months)
Part-time strategic consulting, pre-sales support and application design & development in the field of speech-enabled phone applications.
-
Linguistic Advisor
Odiogo
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
November 2006 — Present (1 year 9 months)
Part-time consulting and development work in a start-up environment. Some marketing (white paper writing, newsletter review), primarily design & development of various linguistic improvement processes. See www.odiogo.com
-
Owner & Managing Director
Prompt! Speech Applications (Self-employed)
(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Information Technology and Services industry)
July 2004 — Present (4 years 1 month)
http://www.prompt-speechapps.com/
References include Dexia Bank (speaker verification, with Dimension Data), Quentris (voice user interface usability audit of EVA, the Electronic Voice Assistant), and Belgacom (VoiceXML teaching) -
Researcher
University of Antwerp, Belgium
(Educational Institution; Biotechnology industry)
February 2003 — May 2004 (1 year 4 months)
http://www.biomint.org/
http://cnts.uia.ac.be/ -
Group Manager Voice Application Development
MagicPhone, a Tellme Company
(Information Technology and Services industry)
September 2001 — October 2002 (1 year 2 months)
http://www.tellme.com/
-
Language Modelling Engineer & Team Manager
Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products
(Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)
May 1998 — August 2001 (3 years 4 months)
-
System Manager & Web Project Manager
Allmansland
(Information Technology and Services industry)
July 1996 — May 1998 (1 year 11 months)
-
Language Engineer
Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems
(Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)
July 1994 — June 1996 (2 years)
Frederik Durant’s Education
-
Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Belgium
Executive MBA, General Management, September 2002 — July 2004
Magna Cum Laude
-
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
MSc, Computer Science (spec. Computational Linguistics), 1990 — 1995
Erasmus Exchange Student at University of Essex, UK (Oct. 1990 - March 1991)
-
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
MA, Romance Philology (French - Spanish), 1986 — 1990
Additional Information
Frederik Durant’s Websites:
Frederik Durant’s Groups:
Vlerick Alumni, ContactCentres.be
-
Vlerick Leuven Gent Alumni member -
K.U.Leuven Computer Science Alumni member -
Machine Learning Connection member
Frederik Durant’s Honors:
Winner of the quadrilingual (NL-FR-EN-DE) dictation contest "Dictee van de Toekomst", organised by JCI Vlaanderen, Brussels, 1996
Frederik Durant’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- consulting offers
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
