Stephen James Underwood - Curriculum Vitae - April 2002

Summary

I am 47 years of age. I have a degree in electronic engineering, and 26 years industrial experience. I have experience in the following areas:

My most recent experience is in the development of telephony systems, but I also have a strong background in a number of product types. I have considerable experience in both consultancy and project management roles.

Personal Details

Sex

Male.

Date of birth

28th December 1954

Age

47 years.

Marital status

Married.

Dependants

A wonderful wife, and two children

Nationality

British since birth (born London, England).
Unconditional stay status in Hong Kong.

Languages

Native English speaker.
Fair Chinese reading.

Driving licence

British. Clean.

Health

No serious illnesses. No disabilities.

Present address

2/D, Greenwood Court,
Discovery Bay,
Lantau Island,
Hong Kong.

Home telephone

+852 2666-0542

Cellular telephone

+852 9730-2052

Education

From 1966 to 1973

Edmonton County School,
Gt. Cambridge Road,
Enfield,
Middlesex.
England

O-level English language, English literature, geography, chemistry, physics, maths, additional maths.
A-level physics, chemistry, pure maths.

From 1973 to 1976

University College London
Gower Street,
London, WC1.
England

BSc(engineering) in electronic engineering

Employment record (most recent first)

From September 1999 to the present

Swiftel Datacom Ltd.,
5/F, Ming Tak Building,
101, Wan Chai Road,
Wan Chai,
Hong Kong.

I am responsible for development in a small company producing telephony systems. We have developed unified messaging platforms, networked IVRs, and call centre systems. These are based on Dialogic hardware. I have constructed small systems, and nodes with up to 6 E1s. I have worked with analogue, T1/DTMF, MFC/R2, and ISDN signaling systems. These systems are mostly Linux based, with some use of Windows workstations. They make extensive use of Internet protocols, providing web interfaces, email to IVR interaction, and the networking of IVRs for message exchange and VoIP.

From May 1994 to September 1999

Times Paging Ltd.,
Rm 1507-1513, Park-In Commercial Centre,
56, Dundas St.,
Mong Kok,
Kowloon,
Hong Kong.

I lead the development of call centre, IVR, business systems and other products for wide area radio paging, and other mobile communications applications. These were based on a mixture of Unix servers and Windows workstations in English, Chinese, and some Indian languages. There were used for several large paging installations in Asia. They made extensive use of Internet protocols, to provide message networking, e-mail and web alerts, etc.

From May 1992 to May 1994

Motorola Semiconductors HK Ltd.,
2, Dai King Street,
Tai Po Industrial Estate,
Tai Po, N.T.,
Hong Kong.

I joined Motorola to develop the company's DSP activities in Asia, which were a new activity for the Hong Kong IC Design Centre. My main activity was the development of voice coding techniques and devices for the economic implementation of digital voice recording and answering machines. I used forms of VSELP coding, and implemented a high end telephone answering machine part. The voice coder in this was similar to the half-rate GSM coder. Follow on work, toward a low end mass market product, was inhibited by the company's slow development of more suitable DSP cores.

From August 1988 to the April 1992

Paging Systems Limited,
Marsh House,
500, Montagu Road,
Edmonton,
London, N9 0UR,
England.

I developed hardware and software products for wide area radio-paging infrastructure. These included a PSTN interface unit for automated paging services, paging encoders, and a paging central office computer system. I developed architectures for the company's network management, DSP based radio transmitter and receiver products. I developed an innovative client server based call centre system for secretarial style paging bureaus, which became the first such system is Asia, with New World Paging, in Hong Kong.

From March 1987 to August 1988

S.T.C. Telecommunications Ltd. (Now Nortel Networks),
20-22, Edinburgh Way,
Harlow,
Essex,
England.

I lead a team of 12 design engineers developing a range of analogue and digital line cards, and digital signal processing (DSP) cards, for E1 telephony multiplexers. These included PSTN line interfaces; rate adapting interfaces; and fully DSP implementations of various tone signaling systems. These products were manufactured in high volume, and hence were cost critical.

From September 1980 to the March 1987

G.E.C. Avionics Ltd.,
Old Parkbury Lane,
Colney Street,
St. Albans,
Herts, AL2 2EN,
England.

I undertook detailed technical reviews of a number of the company's digital signal processing, data processing, graphics and video and radio products. I also produced system level designs and proposals to customers for future signal processing developments.

I produced a large suite of data analysis and graphics software in Coral, for the interactive analysis and presentation of radar trials data.

I proposed, designed and implemented several large scale tools to assist in the development of new radar techniques. One was a test bed for modules from actual radar systems, which involved the development of a large amount of custom hardware and software. Another was an array processor based testbed for modeling large sections of a radar's signal processing system in near real time. This lead to a large speedup in the development of new algorithms for radar processing. I, and other, used these facilities in the design of new radar techniques, with a substantial reduction in costs, timescale and technical risk.

September 1979 to September 1980

C.A.P. (Reading) Ltd. (Now the Sema Group),
Trafalgar House,
Richfield Avenue,
Reading,
Berks,
England.

I joined C.A.P. (a large software house) in a mixed hardware/software design capacity. I was involved in the implementation of a compiler for embedded Intel 8080 microprocessor systems. I also developed software for a part of the System X public telephone switch. I provided hardware expertise to other software projects on a short-term basis.

July 1976 to September 1979

Marconi Avionics Ltd. (now G.E.C. Avionics Ltd.),
Elstree Way,
Borehamwood,
Herts,
England.

I joined Marconi Avionics after graduation from University. I spent 18 months developing hardware, and microprocessor control software for digital signal processing in radar and thermal imaging systems. I then lead a team of seven engineers, which developed a ground based analysis facility for airborne radar development. The system combined microprocessors with a large amount of high speed custom digital signal processing hardware.