Frederik Durant

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 2007Present (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 2006Present (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 2004Present (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 2003May 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 2001October 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 1998August 2001 (3 years 4 months)

  • System Manager & Web Project Manager

    Allmansland

    (Information Technology and Services industry)

    July 1996May 1998 (1 year 11 months)

  • Language Engineer

    Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems

    (Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)

    July 1994June 1996 (2 years)


Frederik Durant’s Education

  • Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Belgium

    Executive MBA, General Management, September 2002July 2004

    Magna Cum Laude

  • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

    MSc, Computer Science (spec. Computational Linguistics), 19901995

    Erasmus Exchange Student at University of Essex, UK (Oct. 1990 - March 1991)

  • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

    MA, Romance Philology (French - Spanish), 19861990


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

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