As Adelphia looks to climb out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, advanced services will play a key role. And that's where video-systems engineer Basil Badawiyeh comes in.
It's his role to assist the MSO's regions in developing strategies for to such emerging technologies as digital cable, HDTV and video-on-demand. And those efforts recently won the 28-year-old the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers' Young Engineer of the Year Award (co-sponsored by Multichannel News). "Our role is to be there for the regions and to make sure the plans are in place to help the overall company in general," he explained.
Chosen by an SCTE-selected panel after he was nominated by his Adelphia colleagues, Badawiyeh came to the MSO about three years ago, after logging time at an Internet-service provider in Buffalo, N.Y. He moved from Coudersport, Pa., to Denver — along with Adelphia's corporate staff — about three months ago. "The reason why I moved into cable is because it's a lot more versatile than the ISP I worked at. Adelphia is an ISP as well as a cable company."
According to the SCTE, it was both Badawiyeh's technical achievements and his role in defining Adelphia's technology strategy that pushed him over the top. He's also a member of the Cable Television Laboratories Inc. board and helped that entity hammer out the CableHome 1.0 spec.
A native of Jordan, Badawiyeh came to the United States in 1993, to attend the State University of New York at Buffalo. An avid fan of soccer and American football, he's still torn between his new hometown team, the Denver Broncos, and the Buffalo Bills. "They never get to play each other, so they're both my favorite teams," he said.
