IEEE Summit on Communications Futures
16 & 17 January 2021

Featured Keynotes and Speakers

Featured Speakers

Harald Haas, Distinguished Professor of Mobile Communications, The University of Strathclyde/Glasgow

Dmitriy KovshrBiography: Harald Haas FREng FRSE FIEEE FIET received the Ph.D. degree from The University of Edinburgh in 2001. He is a Distinguished Professor of Mobile Communications at The University of Strathclyde/Glasgow and the Director of the LiFi Research and Development Centre. Prof Haas is the Initiator, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of pureLiFi Ltd. He has co-authored more than 550 conference and journal papers, including papers in Science and Nature Communications. He has been among the Clarivate/Web of Science highly cited researchers between 2017-2020. Haas’ main research interests are in optical wireless communications and spatial modulation which he first introduced in 2006. He also introduced LiFi to the public at an invited TED Global talk in 2011. Subsequently, LiFi was listed among the 50 best inventions in TIME Magazine in 2011. He gave a second TED Global lecture in 2015 on the use of solar cells as LiFi data detectors and energy harvesters.  His TED talks have been watched online more than 5.5 million times. In 2016, he received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the International Solid State Lighting Alliance. In 2019 he was recipient of IEEE Vehicular Society James Evans Avant Garde Award. In 2017 he received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.

Rob Fish, Professor, Department of Computer Science, Princeton University and President of the IEEE Standards Association

Dmitriy KovshrBiography: Dr. Robert S. Fish is a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University. He is also President of the IEEE Standards Association, a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), and President of NETovations, LLC, a consulting company focused on the creation of communications and networking technology innovation. From 2007 to 2010, he was Chief Product Officer and Senior VP at Mformation, Inc. a company specializing in carrier software for mobile device management. From 1997 to 2007, Rob was Vice President and Managing Director of Panasonic US R&D laboratories. Prior to this, he was Executive Director, Multimedia Communications Research at Bellcore/Telcordia after starting his career at Bell Laboratories. Besides his many publications, Dr. Fish has been awarded 17 patents. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Dr. Fish is Steering Committee chair and Co-founder of ComSoc’s Consumer Communications and Networking Conference. He is the former chair of ComSoc’s GLOBECOM and ICC Management and Strategy Committee. Dr. Fish was the recipient of ComSoc’s MMTC Distinguished Service Award. Rob has also been Chair of IEEE SA’s Global Committee, and was a founding member of the IEEE SA Corporate Advisory Group. He co-edited a series in IEEE Communications Magazine on IEEE standards in communications and networking. Dr. Fish and his organizations have initiated and managed standards development activities in IEEE, ISO/IEC JTC1, 3GPP, OMA, IETF, ATSC, CableLabs, OSGi, etc. In 2016, Dr. Fish was awarded the Standards Medallion of the IEEE Standards Association.

Sarbani Banerjee Belur, Asia Regional Coordinator for the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Senior Research Scientist, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, India

Loukas ParaschisBiography: Dr. Sarbani Banerjee Belur, is currently the Asia Regional Coordinator for Association for Progressive Communications (APC) for the Community Networks Connecting the Unconnected project. She is also the Senior Research Scientist hosted by Spoken Tutorial project at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India. She has been working in the domain of rural connectivity for the past 6 years and have been associated with the Gram Marg project in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay. She holds a PhD in Demography from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She has published in international conferences, journals, contributed book chapters and has authored a book in the areas of demography and social issues around rural connectivity. Her current work involves increasing digital outreach to remote and rural areas of India, deployment of new technology alternatives for the middle and last mile internet connectivity, development of a sustainable models supporting Public – Private – Panchayat – Partnership (4-P model), seeding the growth of community networks, gender and access, developing community technologies and impact assessment studies of connectivity in the lives of people. The impact studies that she focuses on are based on gender, social and economic impacts of connectivity.

Mung Chiang, Dean of College of Engineering, Purdue University

Jason Yi-Bing LinBiography: Mung Chiang is the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering and the Roscoe H. George Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. In 2020 he served as the Science and Technology Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State. Previously he was the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, where he founded the Princeton Edge Lab in 2009 and several startups since then. He received the 2013 Alan T. Waterman Award, the highest award for scientists under the age of 40 in the U.S., and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Inventors and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Roberto Saracco, Master Course, Technology Forecasting and Market Impact, the University of Trento and Co-Chair of the IEEE Digital Reality Initiative

Robert ShapiroBiography: Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America.  He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento and serves as Senior Advisor of the Reply Group.  He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the Industry Advisory Board within the Future Directions Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality fostering Digital Transformation Initiative. He is a COMSOC Distinguished Lecturer and in 2021 he is Chair Elect for the New Initiative Committee.  He has published over 200 papers in journals and magazines and 30 books/ebooks. He writes a daily blog, with commentary on innovation in various technology and market areas.

Michael Marcus, Director, Marcus Spectrum Solutions LLC

Michael MarcusBiography: Michael Marcus is a native of Boston and received S.B. and Sc.D. degrees in electrical engineering from MIT. Prior to joining the FCC in 1979, he worked at Bell Labs on the theory of telephone switching, served in the U.S. Air Force where he was involved in underground nuclear test detection research, and analyzed electronic warfare issues at the Institute for Defense Analyses.  At FCC his work focused on proposing and developing policies for cutting edge radio technologies such as spread spectrum/CDMA and millimeterwaves. Wi-Fi is one outcome of his early leadership. The total amount of spectrum he proposed for unlicensed use and directed the drafting of implementing rules was 8.234 GHz. He also participated in complex spectrum sharing policy formulation involving rulemakings such as ultrawideband and MVDDS. Awarded a Mike Mansfield Fellowship in 1997, he studied the Japanese language and spent at year at the FCC’s Japanese counterpart.  He retired from FCC in March 2004 after servicing a senior technical advisor to the Spectrum Policy Task Force and codirecting the preparation of the FCC’s cognitive radio rulemaking. Immediately after retirement he lived in Paris France for 3 years, consulting for US and European clients. In 2006 he was appointed Special Advisor to Mrs. Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society & Media.  He is now Director of Marcus Spectrum Solutions LLC, an independent consulting firm based in the Washington DC area and focusing on wireless technology and policy. He is also Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech and the 2011-2013 chair of the IEEE-USA Committee on Communications Policy. He was recognized as a Fellow of the IEEE “for leadership in the development of spectrum management policies”, received in 1994 IEEE-USA’s first Electrotechnology Transfer Award , and received in 2013 the IEEE ComSoc Award for Public Service in the Field of Telecommunications “For pioneering spectrum policy initiatives that created modern unlicensed spectrum bands for applications that have changed our world.”

Mei Lin Fung, Chair, People Centered Internet

Mei Lin FungBiography: Chair, People Centered Internet co-founded with Vint Cerf. Closing keynote on Decade of Digital Transformation at the World Bank IFC Global SME Financing Forum October 2020, she presented at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Digital Economics launch in 2017. Mei Lin is an early pioneer of customer relationship management (CRM) now a $40B industry. Socio-technical lead for US Federal Health Futures initiative, she is on the WEF Cross Border Data flows, Payments and Genomics and Ethics working groups. Chair of IEEE Standards Association Industry Connections Social Impact Measurement, on the Executive Committee for IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee, she served as Vice Chair, Internet Inclusion for the IEEE Internet Initiative. Mei Lin is Singaporean, living for decades in Silicon Valley working at Intel then Oracle. Starting work as a software programmer at Shell Australia, with Maya Bundt of Swiss Re, her path led in 2016-2018 to WEF’s Global Future Council on Digital Economy and Society. With BSc in Math from ANU, MBA from MIT where she studied under, she cofounded the @GlobalHelpDesk with Nicole Patrice de Member connecting Tech communities with ITU, UNDP, World Bank and WEF to respond practically to 1.6 billion children who have been pandemic-disrupted.

Abhay Karandikar, Director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur

SpeakerBiography: Abhay Karandikar is currently the Director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He is also Member (Part-Time) of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Before joining IIT Kanpur as the Director in April 2018, he served as Institute Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay. He also served as Dean (Faculty Affairs) and Head of the Electrical Engineering Department at IIT Bombay. Prof. Karandikar was the founding member and former Chairman of Telecommunications Standards Development Society India. He serves on the board of several companies and has founded and mentored start-ups in telecom and networking. Prof. Karandikar has several patents issued and pending, contributions to IEEE, 3GPP standards, contributed chapters in books and large number of papers in international journals and conferences to his credit.

Orv Beach, Retired, Linux System Administrator, ARRL Santa Barbara Section Technical Specialist and Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) Ambassador

Biography: Orv Beach (amateur radio callsign W6BI) was first licensed in 1967. He’s been into digital ham radio all his life, starting with CW. He worked his way up through various other digital modes, and started working with ham radio networking in 2014. Orv has helped deploy the newest digital radios in Ventura County and western Los Angeles County forming an IP network. He’s also active in coordinating the build-out and maintenance of the wider network, which now spans from Santa Barbara south to the Mexican border and east to Las Vegas, comprising over 500 nodes, both on hilltops and at ham QTHs. Orv is a retired Linux system administrator, an ARRL Santa Barbara Section Technical Specialist and an AREDN (Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network) Ambassador, one of those who promote ham radio networking through presentations about the software developed by the AREDN team.

Dorothy Stanley, HPE Fellow and Head of Standards Strategy at Aruba, A Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

Biography: Dorothy Stanley is an HPE Fellow and head of standards strategy at Aruba, A Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. She currently serves as Chair of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group. She has chaired several task groups in the 802.11 Working Group and has served in numerous leadership roles in Wi-Fi Alliance. Previous to joining Aruba Networks in 2005, Stanley was a Consulting Member of the Technical Staff at Agere Systems for Wavelan products and a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies and AT&T Bell Laboratories. Among Dorothy’s awards are 5 patents, a Wi-Fi Alliance Members Achievement Award, and numerous IEEE Standards Association awards.

Mohamed El-Moghazi, Acting Executive Director of National Spectrum Affairs, NTRA of Egypt

Biography: Dr. El-Moghazi is the Acting Executive Director of national spectrum affairs at the NTRA of Egypt. He is currently Vice-Chairman of the CPM- 23, Chair of ASMG Working Group 1 focusing on broadband and mobile issues, and the Chair of ATU Task Group on spectrum recommendations.  Dr. El-Moghazi holds PhD. in Electric and Electronic Engineering, Master of Telecom Management, Post Graduate Certificate in Research Methodology in Business and Management, Engineering from University of Strathclyde, USTTI Diploma in Telecom Management from University 2 of Colorado at Boulder, and B.Sc. in Electronic and Communication Engineering from Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt. He has published numerous papers in prestigious conferences and journals and supervised several Master and PhD thesis on spectrum related issues.  Dr. El-Moghazi was awarded the British Chevening Scholarship from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 2007. He was selected as one of the three finalists for the 2018 Study UK Alumni – Professional Achievement Award in 2018 and was honoured by the UK Ambassador in Egypt. He was also one of the winners of Young Scholar Award from the Pacific Telecommunication Council in 2017. In 2020, he has founded the Global Telecom Policy Research Network (GTPRN), a non-profit initiative for scholars in telecom policy.

Su Shin, President and General Manager, Hawaiian Telcom

SpeakerBiography: Su Shin was named President and General Manager of Hawaiian Telcom in February 2020. The first female president in the company’s more than 135-year history, she is responsible for the overall leadership and management of Hawaiian Telcom’s operations and corporate staff. A strategist, consultant and implementer, Ms. Shin previously served as Chief of Staff, providing strategic counsel to Hawaiian Telcom’s president and senior leadership team, and managing and directing key projects and initiatives. Prior to that, Ms. Shin, a seasoned senior strategic communications executive with more than two decades of experience, served as Executive Director of Marketing and Communications, responsible for all marketing execution and communications functions, including traditional/offline and online advertising, direct marketing, website management and development, social media, as well as strategic internal and external communications. Ms. Shin joined Hawaiian Telcom in August 2013 as Director of Corporate Communications, managing the company’s employee and public relations strategies and activities, with a focus on improving employee engagement. Before coming to Hawaiian Telcom, Ms. Shin served as Senior Vice President at Bennet Group, providing executive leadership at Hawaiʻi’s fourth largest public relations agency. In this role, she was responsible for developing and managing a team of professionals focused on providing strategic communications counsel to many of the state’s most prominent companies. Ms. Shin has extensive utility experience, having served as Chief Communications Officer at the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. She began her career as a broadcast journalist for KHNL-TV, Hawaiʻi’s NBC affiliate. Ms. Shin graduated from McKinley High School before receiving her bachelor’s degree from the University of La Verne in California. Committed to giving back to the community, Ms. Shin currently serves as a member of the Hawai‘i Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai‘i’s Military Affairs Council, and Hawai‘i Green Growth’s Sustainability Business Forum. She also serves on the advisory council for the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Outreach College, and the McKinley High School Foundation.

Nicholas Napp, CEO, Xmark Labs

SpeakerBiography: As a co-founder of Xmark Labs, Nicholas is focused on the role of Virtual & Augmented Reality and Blockchain technologies in enterprise digital transformation. He enjoys working at the intersection of strategy, technology and corporate narrative to accelerate business growth. Nicholas has been working with VR and AR systems since the 1990s when his team at Rainbow Studios pioneered the use of VR in 3D animation production. He has launched over 40 products across a wide range of consumer and enterprise markets. Nicholas is also Board Chair at FabNewport, a non-profit provider of maker-centered learning programs and services for middle school and older students.

 

Robby Robson, CEO, Eduworks Corporation

SpeakerBiography: Dr. Robby Robson is chair of the IEEE Standards Education Committee, the IEEE Standards Association Open Source Committee, and a member of the IEEE Standards Association Board of Governors. In his professional life he is a researcher, entrepreneur, and standards professional who has made foundational contributions to fields ranging from pure mathematics to learning technology and is co-founder and CEO of Eduworks Corporation, a company that applies advanced technologies to learning, education, training, and workforce development.

 

Nigel Bayliff, CEO, Aqua Comms

SpeakerBiography: Nigel Bayliff, CEO of Aqua Comms, is a global telecom industry veteran of 25-plus years’ experience. He has been an advisor and consultant to cable development, private equity and government clients, and Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Joint Task Force that examined the gathering of disaster mitigation and climate information from the global web of undersea cable systems. Mr. Bayliff also served as CEO and board member of Huawei Marine Networks, where he introduced several major, technological advances into the marketplace. Previously, he was a member of the executive team of FLAG Telecom where he was an officer and deputy chairman for several group companies, and was responsible for the construction and operation of the FLAG Global Network, which encompasses 65,000 km of submarine cable systems and provides carrier-grade connectivity services to 40 countries. In 2006, he was elected as a Fellow of the UK Institute of Engineering Technology.

David Law, Distinguished Technologist, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

SpeakerBiography: David has worked on the specification and development of Ethernet products since 1989 including the development of Ethernet adapter cards, the first stackable Ethernet repeaters, stackable Ethernet switches, as well as being the technical lead on ASIC development teams for stackable repeaters and switching chipsets. Throughout this time David has been a member of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Working Group.

David has served as the IEEE 802.3 Chair since 2008, having served as IEEE 802.3 Vice Chair from 1996 to March 2008. David currently also serves as a member of the IEEE-Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Standards Board and chair of the IEEE-SA Patent Committee (PatCom) and has served in a number of other IEEE-SA governance positions including chair of the IEEE-SA Review Committee (RevCom) from 2008 to 2012.

David has received the IEEE-SA Standards Medallion, the IEEE-SA Standards Board Distinguished Service Award, the IEEE-SA International Award, the 2016 IEEE Computer Society Karlsson Award, and the 2017 IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award. David earned his BEng (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, and is based in Oban, Scotland, UK.

Witold Kinsner, Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba

SpeakerBiography: Witold Kinsner is Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from McMaster University in 1974, and became Assistant Professor at McMaster University and then at McGill University. He was a co-founder and Director of Research of the Industrial Applications of Microelectronics Centre from 1979 to 1987. He has been involved in research on cognitive systems, computational intelligence, robust real-time computing engines, and computer memories. Applications included biomedical, industrial monitoring and controls, aerospace, and space. He has authored and co-authored over 810 publications in the above areas, as well as supervised 78 Master’s and Doctorate graduate students, over 210 undergraduate final-year thesis/capstone project students, and mentored 35 summer research students. Since 1971, he has been very active at many IEEE levels: Region 7 (IEEE Canada), Council, Section, Chapter, and Student Branch. He was elected IEEE Canada President Elect 2014-2015, IEEE Director Elect (Region 7) 2014-2015, IEEE Canada President/Director 2016-2017, Past President 2018-19, and IEEE Educational Activities Vice President, 2018-19. He has been an Editor and Member of Editorial Boards of several journals. He is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (FEIC), a Fellow of Engineers Canada (FEC), a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), a Life Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba (APEGM), and a member of other societies.

Linda Katehi-Tseregounis, O’Donnell Endowed Chair in Engineering and a Distinguished TEES Chair Professor of Electronics in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Material Science and Engineering departments at Texas A&M, College Station

SpeakerBiography: Linda Katehi is the O’Donnell Endowed Chair in Engineering and a Distinguished TEES Chair Professor of Electronics in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Material Science and Engineering departments at Texas A&M, College Station. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), The American Academy for Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Innovators (NAI) and a fellow of IEEE. She chaired the President’s Committee for the National Medal of Science and was the chair of the Secretary of Commerce’s Committee for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. She is a Fellow and served on the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) where she also served as the President for the Engineering Section

Loukas Paraschis, Senior Director, Cloud Transport System Engineering for Internet and Content Providers, Infinera

SpeakerBiography: Loukas Paraschis is senior director of cloud transport system engineering for Internet and content providers at Infinera. From 2007-2015, Loukas was cisco’s senior technology architect for wireline transport in global service provider, and from 2000-2006 technical leader in cisco optical networking and routing. He has (co)authored more than 100 peer‐reviewed publications, invited and tutorial presentations, book chapters, and 5 patents, has served in many IEEE and OSA leadership positions, including the OFC and JOCN steering committees, as JOCN associated editor, IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer (2009), and is an OSA Fellow (2011). Loukas graduated from Stanford University (PhD 1999, MS 1998) where he worked at the Information Systems and Networking Research laboratories. He was born in Athens, Greece, where he completed his undergraduate studies.

Adam Drobot, Chairman, OpenTechWorks, Inc.

SpeakerBiography: Adam Drobot is the Chairman of OpenTechWorks Inc. His activities are strategic consulting, start-ups, and industry associations. He serves on the boards of multiple companies and no-profit organizations. In the past he was the Managing Director and CTO of 2M Companies, the President of Applied Technology Solutions and the CTO of Telcordia Technologies (Bellcore). Previous to that, he managed the Advanced Technology Group at Science Applications International (SAIC/Leidos) and was the Senior Vice President for Science and Technology at SAIC.

Currently, Adam is a member of the FCC Technological Advisory Council and Co-Chairs the Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and Computing, the IoT Community Advisory Council, the University of Texas Physics Advisory Council, and is the Chairman of Fames USA a STEM organization. In the past he was on the Board of the Telecommunications Industry Association, the US Department of Transportation Intelligent Transportation Systems Program Advisory Committee; and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute External Advisory Board. He is the past Chair of the IEEE Internet of Things Initiative Activities Board. He has published over 100 journal articles and holds 27 patents. His degrees include a BA in Engineering Physics from Cornell University and a PhD. in Plasma Physics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Tomaso deCola, Team Leader, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

SpeakerBiography: Tomaso de Cola received the Master degree (with honors) in telecommunication engineering, in 2001, the Qualification degree as Professional Engineer in 2002 and the Ph. D. degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering, Robotics and Telecommunications in 2010 from the University of Genoa, Italy. From 2002 until 2007, he worked with the Italian Consortium of Telecommunications (CNIT), University of Genoa Research Unit, as scientist researcher. Since 2008, he has been with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), where he has been involved in several projects funded by EU and ESA programs, focusing on different aspects of DVB standards, CCSDS protocols, emergency communications, and testbed design. He has been taking part of different standardization activities within ETSI, IETF, DVB, and CCSDS, where he serves as deputy area director of the Space Internetworking Services (SIS). He is co- author of more than 70 papers, including international conferences and journals. His main research activity concerns: TCP/IP protocols, satellite networks, transport protocols for wireless links, interplanetary networks as well as delay tolerant networks, and communications strategies for emergency applications.

Dr. de Cola served on the Technical Program Committee at many IEEE International Conferences and as TPC chair for the satellite track in many ICC and Globecom editions. Has also been guest editor for IEEE JSAC and IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine; he is currently serving as associate editor for IEEE Communication Letters and IEEE Wireless Communication Letters. Finally, he has been the chair of the Satellite and Space Communications (SSC) technical Committee (TC) within ComSoc.

Stan Schneider, CEO, Real-Time Innovations

SpeakerBiography:

Stan is CEO of Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the world’s largest software framework provider for smart machines and real-world systems. RTI software runs over 1500 designs in Energy, Medical, Automotive, Transportation, Defense, and Industrial Control. These include the largest power plants in North America, the Canadian Air Traffic Control system, NASA’s launch control system, nearly all Navy ships, several medical robots, hospital device networks, wind turbine farms, trains and metro control systems, and over 250 autonomous vehicle designs. RTI has employees in 22 states and 6 countries with major offices in Silicon Valley, Colorado, and Spain. RTI is certified as a Great Place to Work and holds a top 1% rating on Glassdoor.

Stan is a top influencer in the global Industrial IoT, rated #8 by IoTOne in 2017 and #11 by Onalytica in 2020. Stan serves on the advisory board for IoT Solutions World Congress. Embedded Computing Design presented Stan the Top Embedded Innovator Award for 2015. Stan is active in the Silicon Valley Alliance of CEOs. Stan served on the Steering Committee of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) for six years before stepping down in 2020.

Stan has published more than 50 papers in both academic and industry press. He speaks widely at events and conferences on connected medical systems, intelligent transportation, smartgrid, and the role of the DDS and other connectivity standards in autonomy and smart machines.

Before founding RTI, Stan managed a large Stanford robotics laboratory, led an embedded communications software team and built data acquisition systems for automotive impact testing. Stan earned a summa cum laude BS in Applied Math/Physics and an MS Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan. Stan holds a PhD from Stanford in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a focus in autonomous systems.

Georges Zissis, Professor, The University of Toulouse

SpeakerBiography: Born in Athens in 1964, has graduated in 1986 from Physics department of University of Crete in general physics. He got his MSc and PhD in Plasma Science in 1987 and 1990 from Toulouse 3 University (France). He is today full Professor in Toulouse 3 University (France). His primary area of work is in the field of Light Sources Science and Technology. He is especially interested in the physics of electrical discharges used as light sources; system and metrology issues for solidstate lighting systems; normalization and quality issues for light sources; impact of lighting to energy, environment, quality of life, health and security; interaction between light source and associated power supply; illumination and lighting. He is director of “Light & Matter” research group of LAPLACE that enrols 20 researchers. He won in December 2006 the 1st Award of the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) Centenary Challenge for his work on normalization for urban lighting systems (in conjunction with IEEE, IET and the Observer). In 2009, he won the Energy Globe Award for France and he got the Fresnel Medal from the French Illuminating Engineering Society. In 2011 has been awarded the title of Professor Honoris Causa of Saint Petersburg State University (Russian Federation) and he was President of the Power Electronics, Electronics, Optoelectronics and System section of the French National Council of Universities for the period 2014-19. He is Chairman of the 4E-Solid State Lighting Annex of the International Energy Agency (2020-24)

Tao Zhang, Manager, Emerging Network Technologies, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

SpeakerBiography: For over 30 years, Dr. Tao Zhang, an IEEE Fellow, has been leading research, product development, and corporate strategies to create disruptive innovations and transform them into practical solutions, standards, and products. He is currently managing the Emerging Networking Technologies Group in the Information Technology Lab at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He was the CTO / Chief Scientist for the Smart Connected Vehicles Business at Cisco Systems, and the Chief Scientist and the Director of multiple R&D groups working on wireless and vehicular networking at Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore). He cofounded the Open Fog Consortium and the Connected Vehicle Trade Association (CVTA) and served as a founding Board Director for them. Tao holds 50+ US patents and coauthored two books “Vehicle Safety Communications: Protocols, Security, and Privacy” and “IP-Based Next Generation Wireless Networks”, and 80+ peer-reviewed papers. He served as the CIO and a Board Governor of the IEEE Communications Society and as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. He cofounded and served on leadership roles for multiple international conferences and forums.

Jhon Verboncoeur, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, College of Engineering; Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Professor, Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering, Michigan State University

SpeakerBiography: John P. Verboncoeur received a Ph.D. (1992) in nuclear engineering from the University of California at Berkeley (UCB). After a postdoc at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and UCB, he was appointed Associate Research Engineer at UCB. He joined the UCB Nuclear Engineering faculty in 2001 (Full Professor in 2008), where he cofounded and chaired the Computational Engineering Science program (2001-2010). In 2011, he was appointed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering (added in 2015) at Michigan State University (MSU), where he currently serves as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Engineering. His research interests are in theoretical and computational plasma physics, with a broad range of applications spanning low temperature plasmas for lighting, thrusters and materials processing to hot plasmas for fusion, from ultra-cold plasmas to particle accelerators, from beams to pulsed power, from intense kinetic nonequilibrium plasmas to high power microwaves. He is the author/coauthor of the MSU (formerly Berkeley) suite of particle-in-cell Monte Carlo (PIC-MC) codes, including XPDP1 and XOOPIC, used by over 1000 researchers worldwide with over 450 journal publications in the last decade. He has authored/coauthored over 400 journal articles and conference papers, with over 4500 citations, He is Past President of the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, an IEEE Director, Acting VP of IEEE Publications, Services, and Products Board, and serves on the Board of Directors for the American Center for Mobility national proving ground. He is Associate Editor of Physics of Plasmas, and serves on the DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee as well as the Sandia National Laboratories Grand Challenge LDRD External Advisory Board. Starting in 2016, he chaired the IEEE SmartAg initiative (Smart Agrofood systems: technology applied to the food supply chain).

Raouf Boutaba, University Chair Professor and Director, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo

SpeakerBiography: Raouf Boutaba is a University Chair Professor and Director in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He also holds the INRIA International Chair in France. He is the founding Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (2007-2010), and the current Editor-in- Chief of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC). His research interests are in the areas of network and service management. He has published extensively in these areas and received several journal and conference Best Paper Awards such as the IEEE 2008 Fred W. Ellersick Prize Paper Award. He also received other recognitions, including the Premier’s Research Excellence Award, Industry research excellence Awards, fellowships of the Faculty of Mathematics, of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science and outstanding performance awards at the University of Waterloo. He has also received the IEEE Communications Society Hal Sobol Award and the IFIP Silver Core in 2007, the IEEE Communications Society Joe LociCero and the Dan Stokesbury awards in 2009, the Salah Aidarous award in 2012, the McNaugthon Gold Medal in 2014, the Technical Achievement Award of the IEEE Technical Committee on Information Infrastructure and Networking as well as the Donald W. McLellan Meritorious Service Award in 2016. He served as a distinguished lecturer for the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies. He is fellow of the IEEE, the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Canada.

Halim Yanikomeroglu, Professor, Department of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University, Canada

SpeakerBiography: Dr. Halim Yanikomeroglu is a Professor in the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University, Canada. His primary research domain is wireless networks. His extensive collaboration with industry on 4G/5G wireless technologies resulted in 37 granted patents. During 2012-2016, he led one of the largest academic-industrial collaborative research programs on pre-standards 5G wireless. In Summer 2019, he started a new large-scale project on the 6G non-terrestrial networks. He is a Fellow of IEEE, EIC (Engineering Institute of Canada), and CAE (Canadian Academy of Engineering), and a Distinguished Speaker for both IEEE Communications Society and IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. He served as the General Chair and Technical Program Chair of several major IEEE conferences; he also served in the Editorial Boards of several IEEE periodicals. He served as the Chair of IEEE Technical Committee on Personal Communications, and he is currently chairing the Steering Committee of IEEE’s flagship Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC). Dr. Yanikomeroglu received several awards for his research, teaching, and service, including the IEEE Wireless Communications Technical Committee Recognition Award in 2018 and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Stuart Meyer Memorial Award in 2020.

Narendra Mangra, Principal, GlobeNet LLC

SpeakerBiography: Narendra Mangra, Principal at GlobeNet LLC, has consulted extensively within the wireless mobility ecosystem and network deployment lifecycle stages for academia, government, and industry. His experience extends across the agriculture, commercial fixed and mobile broadband telecommunications, health care, public safety, and transportation domains. His IEEE leadership roles include the Future Networks International Network Generations Roadmap (INGR), Applications and Services WG, Young Professionals Education, P1950.1 Smart Cities Framework Standard Development, Public Safety Task Force, and the Telehealth Industry Connections Initiative. Narendra is also an Adjunct Professor at the George Mason University.

His blended consulting experience include strategy development, roadmaps, spectrum rebanding, network design and optimization, large mobile and fixed network deployments, cellular and satellite systems integration and commissioning, operations & business support systems, system cutovers, international roaming, procurements, and program management. His interests include 5G and technology convergence, smart cities, and related ecosystems.

Burt Lum, Strategy Officer, Hawaii Broadband Initiative, State of Hawaii

SpeakerBiography: Burt Lum is the State of Hawaii’s Strategy Officer for the Hawaii Broadband Initiative dedicated to ensuring that Hawaii establishes robust, resilient, ubiquitous connectivity to the global broadband network. He was previously the Executive Director of Hawaii Open Data, a non-profit dedicated to advancing the principles of open data/knowledge in Hawaii, including policy work and community collaborations. He has more than 30 years in Hawaii’s technology and communications sector and is a frequent speaker and panelist on the topic of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Stephen B. Weinstein, Independent Consultant

SpeakerBiography: Stephen B. Weinstein, who lives in New York City, received his SB, MSc, and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley respectively. Dr. Weinstein conducted early research and development of data-driven echo cancellation, software generation of OFDM signals, and multimedia communications, and was active in the 1990s IEEE P1520 standards initiative on open network control interfaces. He received the 2006 Eduard Rhein Foundation (Germany) basic research prize for his foundational work on OFDM and IEEE’s 2016 Emberson Award for contributions to IEEE publications, awards and globalization. He is the author of Getting the Picture: A Guide to CATV and the New Electronic Media (IEEE Press, 1984), co-author of the textbook Data Communication Principles (Plenum, 1992), the author of The Multimedia Internet (Springer, 2005), and co-author of the ComSoc Guide to Passive Optical Networks (Wiley- IEEE Press, 2012). Dr. Weinstein is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and a past President (1996-97) of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc). He was an early founding Editor in Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine.

T. Russell Hsing, Honorary Chair Professor, National Chiao Tung University

SpeakerBiography: Dr. T. Russell Hsing is an IEEE Life Fellow and Fellow for the British Computer Society and SPIE. He was employed by Burroughs, Xerox, GTE Labs, and Bellcore/Telcordia/Ericsson (1977-2012) where he retired as an Executive Director. Since 2012 he is an Honorary Chair Professor at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, and since 2018 an Advisory Council Member for Harvard Business Review. During his tenure at Telcordia he co-established R&D centers in Taipei (Taiwan), and Poznan (Poland), focusing on advanced ICT partnering with local institutions to win significant contract funding from both commercial and local government sources. He has held visiting positions at universities in Taiwan, the U.S., China, India, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong and served on the Boards of several academic spin-offs and the Open Fog Consortium. He teaches courses on “Technology Entrepreneurship: From IP to IPO” and “Internet Economics”. His research interests include Fog/Edge Computing & Networking, Vehicular Telematics & Services, Wireless 5G/6G, Beyond IoTServices , Technology Entrepreneur and Academic Spin-offs.

David Witkowski, CEO, Oku Solutions LLC and Executive Director, Civic Technologies Initiatives at Joint Venture Silicon Valley

SpeakerBiography: David Witkowski is an author, advisor, and strategist who works at the intersection between local government and the telecommunication industry. He is a Fellow in the Radio Club of America, an IEEE Senior Member, the Founder & CEO of Oku Solutions LLC, and is the Executive Director of Civic Technologies Initiatives at Joint Venture Silicon Valley. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard and earning his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Davis, he held leadership roles for companies ranging from Fortune 500 multi-nationals to early-stage startups. He serves as Co-Chair of the Deployment Working Group at IEEE Future Networks, Co-Chair of the GCTC Wireless SuperCluster at NIST, and as an Expert Advisor to the California Emerging Technology Fund.

Mr. Witkowski is the author of “Bridging the Gap : 21st Century Wireless Telecommunications” (Joint Venture Silicon Valley – 1st Ed.: 2016, 2nd Ed.: 2019), co-editor of “Public Wi-Fi Blueprint” (GCTC @ NIST – 2017), co-editor of “The Municipal Internet of Things Blueprint” (GCTC @ NIST – 2019), co-author of “Evaluation of RF Network Testing” (Anritsu, Bird Technologies, CommScope, & Motorola – 2013), co-author of “Carrier & Public Wi-Fi” (Mobile Experts LLC – 2015), and co-author of “HayWired Scenario Volume 3 – Telecommunications and ICT” (U.S. Geological Survey – 2020).

Timothy Lee, Technical Fellow, The Boeing Company

SpeakerBiography: Tim Lee, a Boeing Technical Fellow, based on Huntington Beach, CA is involved in the R&D of advanced microelectronics for compute, communications and sensing applications. He has over 35 years of experience in the area of microwave device technology, microwave circuit design, and hardware development for aerospace applications. He has been active in the IEEE activities that promotes the use of
technology that benefits humanity. He is currently on the IEEE Board of Directors, serving as the Director for Region 6 (Western US). He is the Co-Chair of the IEEE Future Networks Initiative and the Co-Chair of the FNI Millimeter-waves and Signal Processing Technical Working Group. In the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society, he serves as the Co-Chair of the TWG on 5G and on Aerospace / Defense. He is also the General Chair of the IEEE 2020 International Microwave Symposium (https://ims-ieee.org). In 2015, he served as the President of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) which is the technical home for all microwave engineer students and professionals.

Dennis Brophy, Director of Strategic Business Development. Siemens EDA

SpeakerBiography: Dennis Brophy is director of strategic business development in the Design Verification Technology group at Siemens EDA where he manages a global interoperability program to promote product integrations with the company’s functional verification products.  He manages group standardization strategy and has a long history of successful collaboration with industry peers for end user benefit.

Dennis has been in the electronic design automation industry for the past 41 years.  He was first with Hewlett-Packard for five years where, as a software engineer, he worked on early
PCB design automation systems and later became a product manager and launched HP’s electronic design automation services business.  He then joined Mentor Graphics, now Siemens EDA, where he has held several positions the past 36 years.

Dennis received a B.S. from the University of California at Davis in electrical engineering and computer engineering.

Panelists

Panel Moderator: Dr. Ashutosh Dutta

SpeakerBiography: Ashutosh Dutta is currently senior scientist and 5G Chief Strategist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). He is also a JHU/APL Sabbatical Fellow and adjunct faculty at The Johns Hopkins University. Ashutosh also serves as the chair for Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Engineering for Professional Program at Johns Hopkins University. His career, spanning more than 30 years, includes Director of Technology Security and Lead Member of Technical Staff at AT&T, CTO of Wireless for NIKSUN, Inc., Senior Scientist and Project Manager in Telcordia Research, Director of the Central Research Facility at Columbia University, adjunct faculty at NJIT, and Computer Engineer with TATA Motors. He has more than 100 conference, journal publications, and standards specifications, three book chapters, and 31 issued patents. Ashutosh has been serving as the founding Co-Chair for the IEEE Future Networks Initiative. Ashutosh served as IEEE Communications Society’s Distinguished Lecturer for 2017-2020 and as an ACM Distinguished Speaker (2020-2022). He continues to serve as Member-at-Large for IEEE Communications Society. Ashutosh obtained his BS in Electrical Engineering from NIT Rourkela, India where he was awarded Distinguished Alumnus Award; MS in Computer Science from NJIT; and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, New York under the supervision of Prof. Henning Schulzrinne. Ashutosh is a Fellow of IEEE and senior member of ACM.

Panelist 1: Dr. Subir Das

SpeakerBiography: Dr. Subir Das is a Chief Scientist at Perspecta Labs and has nearly 30 years of research and development experience. He is currently responsible for creating strategic programs, researching new technologies and transitioning such technologies into products through standards. Prior to this, Dr. Das was a chief scientist at Vencore Labs and a senior scientist at Telcordia Technologies Inc (formerly Bellcore). His areas of interests are Mobile Wireless IP Networking (3G/4G/5G), Low power Personal Area Networking, WLAN and Edge Networking, Industrial Control System Security, and network and Internet of Things (IoT) security. Dr. Das is a leading contributor to various Standards (e.g., IEEE, IETF, and ZigBee) and has served as the chair in several groups. He was also actively involved in developing Cellular (3G/4G (LTE)) networking technologies in 3GPP. Dr. Das has published nearly 100 papers, 5 IETF RFCs and has been granted 30 US patents. He is a recipient of the 2009 IEEE Region I Award for outstanding contribution to Next Generation Wireless Networks, Protocols and its Standardization Efforts. He served as a member in the National Science Foundation, USA, and the National Science and Engineering Council, Canada award review committees. He is a member of the IEEE and conducted several workshops and panels in international conferences.

Panelist 2: Dr. Eman Hammad

SpeakerBiography: Dr. Eman Hammad is an interdisciplinary researcher focusing on cybersecurity, trustworthy & resilient critical infrastructure systems. She obtained her PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto. Eman combines practical experience and theoretical research to shape her vision for resilient-by-design solutions in the connected world. Eman’s primary focus is on how a deeper understanding of interactions between critical physical systems, communication and enabling technologies can help design new classes of operational solutions that are more resilient to cyber/physical disruptions. Her research has been recognized with merit awards (best paper award, best poster award) and has been featured on the Smart Cybersecurity Network. Eman is a senior IEEE member who has been an active volunteer, and is currently serving as the co-chair of the IEEE 5G Security working group for the International Network Generations Roadmap (INGR). She delivered several invited talks in academic and industrial conferences, chaired and co-chaired several conferences and workshops. Eman is an active advocate for diversity in STEM and Cybersecurity. Her service has been recognized by IEEE chapter achievement and exemplary service awards.

Panelist 3: Dr. Michael A. Enright

SpeakerBiography: Dr. Michael A. Enright is the CEO and President of Quantum Dimension, Inc. and has 30 years of experience in security, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), cellular engineering, image and video processing, RF communication and GPS and non-GPS navigation design. He leads the development of Quantum Dimension’s prototype and product developments and his core expertise is in computing and signal processing. Dr. Enright has four degrees in three engineering fields that include: Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC), M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia and B.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Additionally, he has earned certificates in Cybersecurity from New York University and Cloud Computing from Georgia Tech University. Dr. Enright is a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Thank You to Our 2021 In-kind Sponsors

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    Over the last two decades our mission has evolved dramatically. First in the area of communications – Internet, wireless, and data transmission – and then into broader digital applications that improve our customers’ worlds every day, whether they’https://www.hawaiiantel.com/re residential, business or government. Hawaiian Telcom has become deeply engaged in a wide variety of new products and services. From the fiber that feeds your 4G wireless network to digital television. From VoIP Hosted Voice to virtual colocation. From enabling new office towers with fiber for greater connectivity to laying new undersea cables across the Pacific to Asia. Today, Hawaiian Telcom is offering 1 Gig broadband service, providing state-of-the-art cloud services for businesses, and expanding Hawaii’s largest next-generation fiber network. We employ more than 1,200 technology, communications and customer service professionals. We serve Hawai‘i, our home. And we’ll continue to serve Hawai‘i as we grow and expand.

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    Nalu Scientific, LLC develops high-end sensors and systems. Company staff and technical advisors have over 50 years of combined experience in developing microelectronics for astrophysics and high-energy physics (HEP) experiments as well as consumer markets. Our team includes senior engineers, physicists, IP, legal, and strategic business advisors. Founder Dr. Isar Mostafanezhad is a serial entrepreneur and university researcher with academic, industry, and business background in medical, wearable, and scientific sensors, including work on various microchips multi-channel giga samples-per-second (GSa/s) analog to digital and digital to analog converters.

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