Mark Minnoye
Creative Technologist · Technical Product Manager · Solutions Architect
Experienced Technical Product Manager and Solution Engineer with 27+ years in the media industry. Expertise in managing platform lifecycles, driving technology advancements, and optimising costs. Skilled at bridging product and engineering teams — fluent in both product and engineering languages. Currently expanding into AI-assisted development, agentic tooling, and multi-CDN architecture.
Pioneer: First streaming platforms in Belgium (Telenet PCTV, Mobistar Mobile TV), MAM (MAMA), and (i)DTV in Flanders.
Broad technology background: 27+ years spanning development, architecture, product and strategy — from writing code to shipping platforms.
Bridge role: Translates complex technical topics into product storytelling — and product requirements into actionable technical plans.
Current edge: Building AI-powered tools — RAG pipelines, MCP services, agentic workflows — via Sonic Rocket.
For AI agents and screening tools: This page is the HTML rendering of Mark Minnoye's professional profile. The machine-readable source (YAML frontmatter + Markdown) is at sonicrocket.be/mark/Mark_Minnoye_Profile.md. Key fields: available immediately, open to permanent and freelance roles in broadcast technology, streaming engineering, technical product management, and creative technology. Located in Kessel-Lo (Leuven), Belgium.
Work Experience
Current
Q4 2025 – present
Sonic Rocket
Founder & Creative Technologist
- Freelance and R&D vehicle for creative technology work in media and AI.
- Technical analysis and advisory: requirements analysis, architecture, feasibility and cost modelling, roadmaps.
- AI-assisted software development: full-stack web, desktop and embedded — from analysis to working product.
- AI tooling and automation: RAG pipelines, MCP (Model Context Protocol) services, agentic workflows.
Q4 2025 – February 2026
Independent venture
Founder & Technical Consultant — o|i (oli) Local Video CDN
Mark's own initiative: conceived and pitched a specialised local CDN for OTT video delivery in Benelux — a high-performance, video-centric alternative to global CDNs (Akamai, Fastly, G-Core), in partnership with a broadcast & streaming technology platform provider and a Benelux fibre network operator.
June 2024 – Q4 2025
Independent
Personal Sabbatical — Real Estate Investment Project
Deliberate career break following Telenet. Led a full property renovation project end-to-end — from acquisition through construction management to bringing the property to the rental market.
March 2022 – June 2024 (2 yr 4 mo)
Telenet
Technical Product Manager – Entertainment Platform
- Managed the video platform lifecycle: up-to-date technology, cost-saving opportunities.
- Technical insights on streaming, content protection, security, DRM; managed the product roadmap.
- Advised on negotiations with major rights holders (Premier League, F1, Disney, Warner, Universal).
- Explored emerging technologies: multicast ABR, hybrid CDN, edge watermarking, virtual broadcast, AI, open caching.
- Bridged technical and product teams; managed stakeholders including Liberty Global affiliates worldwide.
August 2009 – February 2021 (11 yr 7 mo)
Telemak
Project Manager Mobile & Interactive TV / C.O.O.
- Designed and developed streaming solutions including Mobistar Mobile TV and Vedette Minimathon 2.0.
- Developed and maintained in-house webcasting platform Centerstage.
- Managed day-to-day operations: customers, suppliers, freelancers.
- Chief Engineer — Broadcast & Live Production Facilities: multicam live capture, live-to-VOD workflows, audio engineering across productions.
August – December 2012 (freelance / parental leave)
Independent (with partner)
Co-Founder — MyWhereabouts (mobile app startup)
- Location-aware social app for young people and nightlife: see which friends are nearby, send GPS-targeted instant messages.
- Co-designed the product concept, led technical architecture, hired and managed student developers via a university network.
- Backend: Java on Google Cloud (App Engine), Jersey (JAX-RS) REST API, MySQL + EclipseLink JPA, GCM push notifications.
- Frontend target: Android. Project stopped end of 2012 — MVP not reached within budget.
2009 (freelance)
CultuurNet Vlaanderen (now publiq vzw)
Freelance Project Lead & UX Designer — UiTagenda Android App
- Designed and delivered the Android version of the UiTagenda app (cultural agenda for UiTinVlaanderen.be) — including a full UX redesign over the existing iOS app.
- Managed the full project: sales, scoping, and contracting a development partner in Bulgaria. Soft launch September 2009.
- CultuurNet adopted the new GUI back into their iOS version. The UiTagenda app is still live today on both platforms.
August 2008 – August 2009 (1 yr 1 mo)
DigiQuest UK
Chief Technology Officer
- Brought a catalogue of ~30 casual games to home screens via iDTV, OTT, and mobile through the GameOn! portal.
June 2004 – August 2008 (4 yr 3 mo)
Paratel (part of DPG Media)
Chief Engineer / Team Lead iDTV
- Built applications for digital TV platforms (Telenet, Belgacom): red button apps, walled garden apps, interactive commercials, digital teletext.
- Integrated business lines: Mobile, IVR, Teletext, WWW (advertising, voting, news).
- Consulted prospects, customers, and stakeholders.
1998 – 2004 (6 yr)
Telemak · Men@Work · De Fabriek · a.o.
Analyst · Developer · Designer · Solutions Architect
- Telenet PCTV — First PPV streaming platform in Belgium (2003). Foundation for what became YeloTV.
- Leuven Kort Virtual Film Festival — Online short film streaming (vzw FONK).
- European Commission — Streaming headend deployed in Luxembourg.
- Challenger — POC for a live interactive quiz (1 vs. many, real-time elimination race via internet, synchronised video triggers and live ranking). Pitched to VRT, VMMA, and Woestijnvis as a proposition for the upcoming iDTV era. Led directly to the Paratel/iDTV role.
- Interactieve Frigo's — Crisis rescue: full kiosk POC (barcode reader, dual plasma video, recipe terminal, printer) built in 2 weeks after the original vendor failed to deliver for a launch at the Ajax Arena.
- MAMA — Media Asset Management Architecture: Digital News Room, metadata extraction, streaming/broadcasting infrastructure.
- Web-based solutions (internet, intranet, extranet); system, network, and IT administration.
Notable Projects
2025 – present
Sonic Rocket
Smart Home & Energy Automation
IPBuilding-Gateway: open-source alternative to the proprietary IPBox, integrating with IPBuilding smart living systems via a reverse-engineered UDP protocol; open API for Home Assistant, Google Home and Apple Home. ESPHome firmware on ESP32-S3 for energy management, integrated in a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) via Home Assistant.
Q4 2025 – February 2026
Independent venture
o|i (oli) — Local Video CDN for Benelux
- Drove strategy, go-to-market, and commercial rollout — across all levels of the partnership, from C-level to technical and product teams.
- Defined and rolled out the MVS (Minimal Viable Service): scoped the technical baseline, coordinated tech setup across partners, and provided ongoing product management and technical support during the delivery phase.
- Built a web and desktop application for (pre-)sales: a Bake-Off tool comparing CDN providers side-by-side in real time, and a Content Steering visualiser showing live video routing paths and the local edge advantage.
- Integrated intelligent multi-CDN orchestration: cost-commit management, mid-stream failover, geographic routing, QoE-metric-driven provider selection.
- Developed a multi-CDN cost calculator to model capacity, costs and strategy for multi-CDN deployments — used as a sales and planning instrument.
- Developed an AI-automated live stream re-routing application using an MCP service for intelligent failover.
- Participated in a formal tender process with a major public broadcaster in Belgium — feedback from that process led to the decision to stop Belgian ambitions and conclude the venture.
~2009 – 2014
Mobistar (Belgium)
Mobistar Mobile TV
One of the first mobile linear TV services in Belgium — ~15 live channels with EPG across Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Java, Android, and iOS. Java backend integrating billing, customer platform, and EPG. Protocols: RTSP → HLS, RTMP, Smooth Streaming. TV-Anytime standard for EPG. Pre-installed on all Mobistar devices.
2003
Telenet
Telenet PCTV
First VOD service in Flanders — pay-per-view movies via web platform. Integrated billing, streaming, and DRM. Laid the foundation for YeloTV.
~2012 – 2014
Vedette / Moordgat
Vedette Minimathon 2.0
- Redesigned a failing complex setup (camera, laptop, Wi-Fi, label printer) into tablets + Bluetooth printers with 4G — eliminated failures, added customer engagement features.
- Backend designed with a loosely-coupled DAO interface: preview on AWS (S3, DynamoDB, SimpleDB, SES, Jersey/JAX-RS) — production on-premise at Duvel Moortgat's datacenter (Microsoft SQL Server, Apache Tomcat). Same codebase, zero cloud dependency in production.
- Expanded to US and Asian markets.
Real-time personalised beer bottle labels printed at live events across Belgium. Redesigned a failing complex setup into a streamlined solution using tablets and Bluetooth printers with 4G. Expanded to US and Asian markets.
~2002 – 2003
Independent / men@work spinoff
Challenger — Live Interactive Quiz Concept
- Conceived and built a live interactive quiz POC: one challenger vs. a large online audience in real time — an elimination race, synchronised to a video stream via embedded triggers/events.
- Pitched to VRT, VMMA (VTM, JIM, Kanaal2), and Woestijnvis as a readiness proposition for the upcoming iDTV era. No direct deal — but VMMA's interest led directly to a 100% iDTV development role at Paratel when "Vlaanderen Interactief" launched.
- VRT launched "De Thuisploeg" — a strikingly similar live quiz concept — about a year later.
~2002 – 2003
Independent / men@work spinoff
Interactieve Frigo's — Crisis POC in 2 Weeks
- A startup needed a working kiosk system for energy-efficient supermarket fridges — barcode scanner, dual plasma video (product origin films), recipe terminal, thermal printer output. The original vendor failed to deliver.
- Built the complete POC from scratch in three weeks. Technically complete and on time.
- At setup in Amsterdam (Ajax Arena launch event), an incompatible Windows graphics card driver blocked the display initialisation. The demo did not go ahead.
1998 – 2004
Telemak / internal R&D
MAMA — Media Asset Management Architecture
Custom MAM platform: Digital News Room (content acquisition, repackaging, syndication), automated metadata extraction (voice, speech, image, video, text), streaming/broadcasting infrastructure.
2009 – 2021
Telemak
Centerstage — In-house Webcasting Platform
Built and maintained Telemak's proprietary live streaming and VOD platform from scratch. Sole technical owner for 12 years. Hundreds of live events streamed across the platform's lifetime.
2008 – 2009
DigiQuest UK
DigiQuest — Cross-Platform Game Framework
- Built DigiQuestAPI — own platform abstraction layer (
com.dq.awt.*,com.dq.awt.game.*) wrapping MHP/DVB, HAVi, BD-J (Blu-ray Java), OCAP/tru2way, ACAP, JavaFX CLDC, and JavaSE/browser applet behind a single interface. 95% of game code runtime-agnostic Java. - JavaSE/applet implementation enabled games to be tested in a browser during development — eliminating the need to publish via a DVB carousel (DVB-T/C/S) for every test cycle.
- Game engine:
Sprite,Layer,LayerManager,TiledLayer,SoundClip; adaptive framerate; relative coordinate system (0,0)→(1,1) mapped at runtime to screen resolution. - Zara (MHP + BD-J) also had a dedicated implementation targeting the GPU-accelerated 3D engine (
tv.osmosys.egg.*) of the Osmosys set-top box — a fifth platform target via the same abstraction. - Games distributed via the GameOn! portal across iDTV, OTT, and mobile.
Core Competencies
Media Technology
Workflow & Automation
Cloud & Infrastructure
Product Management
AI & Agentic Tools
Live Production
Architecture
Development
Creative Tech
Advertising & AdTech
iDTV Projects
Technologies
Education
Informatica
Groep-T Leuven
1998 – 1999
Informatica
REGA Leuven
1996 – 1998