Speakers

Abhitabh ( Abhi ) Kushwaha , is AVP of Network AI & Data at Verizon, where he leads the strategic integration of AI and advanced ML engineering to power the next generation of autonomous networks. He is the architect behind Verizon's shift from manual operations to an intent-driven, self-healing infrastructure, setting a global benchmark for network reliability and customer experience.

Abhi oversees the full ML and AI engineering lifecycle — from model conception to cross-platform deployment — with a focus on operationalizing AI at scale. His work in zero-touch provisioning and predictive network management actively future-proofs Verizon's ecosystem for the 5G-Advanced and 6G eras.

His strategic vision: fully autonomous network operations through AI-driven, intent-based architectures.

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Abhimanyu Gosain is a Senior Director for Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems at Northeastern University, co-Chair for the US FCC 6G Technology Advisory Council,  World Radio Conference Advisory Committee (WAC) member, and Senior Advisor for NTIA Innovation Fund and US Department of Defense Research and Engineering FutureG.  He is the Co-PI for NSF NRDZ EEL program, POSE Open6G and VINES program. He is a Founding member for Magma Core Foundation and government representative for O-RAN Alliance, AI-RAN Alliance and NextG Alliance. He serves on multiple International project committees of Japan XGMF, SLICES-EU and co-chair on organizing committees for OpenRIT6G, 6GSymposium, EuCNC, IEEE InfoCom, GlobeCom and ACM WinTech. He is a US government 3GPP delegate and IEEE Senior Member. His numerous professional publications and experience exemplify use-inspired basic research in the field of networking technologies, such as 5G, 6G, AI/ML, edge computing, and IoTs.

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Adnan Khan is a technology executive with more than 25 years of experience across mobile networks, semiconductors, wireless infrastructure, consumer electronics, device manufacturing, and test and measurement solutions. As a member of the CTO Office at Anritsu Company, he helps shape the strategic technology direction and innovation roadmap for the company’s wireless and wire line product portfolio. A recognized expert in wireless technologies and industry trends, Adnan is a frequent speaker at leading industry conferences, an active participant in connectivity technology consortiums, and a published author whose articles provide insight into emerging technologies and market developments. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and is based in Texas.

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Aji Ed is VP and Head of AI‑RAN at Nokia, with global responsibility for strategy, product management, and ecosystem partnerships for AI-RAN. Aji serves on the board of the AI‑RAN Alliance and regularly engages with industry leaders on AI‑native network evolution.

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Click here to see Alankar's LinkedIn profile.

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As Chief Operating Officer at Scaleway, Albane is responsible for the global operations of the company: the infrastructure - datacenter and hardware - on which relies our cloud, international expansion and customer services. Her team is also responsible for managing the strategic projects of Scaleway.

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Alberto Rico Alvariño received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vigo, Spain, in 2014. He joined Qualcomm Technologies, San Diego, CA, USA, in 2014, where he is currently a Director of Technical Standards. Alberto is responsible for standardization and ecosystem development for verticals using 3GPP technologies. He has been involved in R&D and standardization activities related to verticals in 4G, 5G and 6G, including non-terrestrial networks, IoT features (eMTC/NB-IoT), and broadcast, among others. He has attended 3GPP RAN1 since 2016 and has served as rapporteur for multiple work items.

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Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi, a South Korean luminary in the global mobile telecommunications sector, boasts over three decades of industry experience. Currently, Dr. Choi is working at SoftBank Corp. and continues to champion innovation at the intersection of AI, mobile technology, and network architecture. He is also currently the Chair of the AI-RAN Alliance. He is dedicated to advancing technology frontiers, crafting strategies that enhance both business and consumer experiences, and guiding the industry towards a more connected, intelligent, and open future.

Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi, a South Korean luminary in the global mobile telecommunications sector, boasts over three decades of industry experience. Currently, Dr. Choi is working at SoftBank Corp. and continues to champion innovation at the intersection of AI, mobile technology, and network architecture. He is also currently the Chair of the AI-RAN Alliance. He is dedicated to advancing technology frontiers, crafting strategies that enhance both business and consumer experiences, and guiding the industry towards a more connected, intelligent, and open future.

Click here to see Amina's LinkedIn profile.

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Amreeta Gill is a Worldwide Physical AI Specialist at Amazon Web Services (AWS). She helps customers and partners take robotics, autonomous systems, and embodied AI from research into production -- connecting edge, simulation, and cloud. Previously Amreeta led global go-to-market for open-weight models on Amazon Bedrock. Earlier in her career, she led development of connected medical devices and neuromodulation products: implanted and networked hardware-software systems that sense and act on the physical world in real time. Amreeta studied Brain & Cognitive Sciences at MIT and Neuroengineering at UCLA.

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See Aparna's LinkedIn profile here.

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See Aparna's LinkedIn profile here.

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Arielle Roth was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information on July 30, 2025. In this role, she serves as Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Executive Branch agency principally responsible for advising the President on communications, broadband, and internet policy.

Prior to joining NTIA, Roth spent nearly a decade shaping federal communications and broadband policy, holding senior roles on Capitol Hill and at the Federal Communications Commission. She most recently served as Policy Director for Telecommunications on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation under Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX), and previously as Legislative Counsel to former Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO).

At the FCC, Roth served as Wireline Legal Advisor to former Commissioner Michael O’Rielly and as Legal Advisor to the Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau. Earlier in her career, she was a Legal Fellow with the Hudson Institute’s Center for the Economics of the Internet.

Roth holds degrees from the University of Toronto and McGill University Faculty of Law. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Yaakov, and their six children.

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Dr. Zhangyang “Atlas” Wang is the Temple Foundation Endowed Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on how training dynamics discover structural inductive biases such as sparsity, low-rank structure, and algebraic symmetries; how these structures manifest attest time in inference, reasoning, and agentic planning; and how they enable resource-aware and trustworthy AI in high-stakes real-world domains. His workhas received a number of distinctions, and he has mentored a broad network of Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers, many of whom now hold tenure-trackfaculty positions or senior research roles in industry. He is also on leaveserving as Research Director at XTX Markets, where he founded and leads thefirm’s AI Lab in New York City.

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Bilal Sher is CEO and Co-Founder of Building Diagnostic Robotics (BDR), a deep-tech robotics company at Newlab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. BDR builds Roofus, an autonomous robot that inspects commercial roofs. Roofus combines ground-penetrating radar, thermal imaging, RGB cameras and LiDAR. BDR’s patented AI processes the scan data on its servers and turns it into reports on the condition of the roof. Roofing contractors operate the robot themselves under a Robotics-as-a-Service subscription. BDR’s mission is to digitize the built environment, with a path from rooftops to concrete, utilities and defense.

Bilal is a structural engineer. Before BDR, he led more than 60 field investigations of structural and building-envelope failures in the US Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria. That work showed him how slow and costly manual inspection is, and led to Roofus. The robot grew out of research at NYU, where Bilal was a named inventor on the patent BDR now licenses and first author on the DeepGPR paper (ISARC 2023).

BDR has won the DOE E-ROBOT Prize, the NSF Civic Innovation Challenge Stage 1 and Stage 2, NSF I-Corps and the Army xTechSearch 9 finalist award. Roofus has been field-tested on New York City rooftops since 2024, with deployments for NYC DCAS and the Archdiocese of New York. Bilal spoke at the IROS 2026 Future of Construction workshop on customer adoption of AI and robotics in existing workflows.

Bilal holds an M.S. in Civil Engineering from New York University, with a focus on AI and deep learning, and a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of Calgary.

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Charles Watson II is Senior Vice President of Network Operations at C Spire, where he leads the company’s end-to-end network operations, including the Network Experience Center, wireless core, access, network performance and optimization, video operations, and network automation. He is responsible for ensuring the reliability, performance, and evolution of C Spire’s network while advancing operational excellence and delivering an exceptional customer experience.

With more than 26 years of experience in the telecommunications and technology industries, Charles brings extensive leadership experience across network engineering, operations, solution engineering, product management, and emerging technologies. His focus includes advancing the evolution of C Spire’s 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) and Standalone (SA) networks while modernizing network operations through cloud-native architectures, artificial intelligence, and automation to improve network resiliency, operational efficiency, and service delivery.

Charles also serves as Deputy Chair of the GSMA North American Networks Working Group, where he collaborates with industry leaders to advance network interoperability, operational frameworks, and the evolution of mobile technologies across North America, with particular emphasis on the needs of Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Tougaloo College.

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Christina Pöpper is a tenured Professor of Computer Science at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). She is the Director of Research Impact at the Center for Cyber Security at NYUAD, and a Global Network Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. At NYUAD, she is heading the Cyber Security & Privacy (CSP-) Lab. Christina's research interests are cyber security and privacy, with a focus on wireless and communication security, incl. cellular/mobile network security (5G, nextG), secure localization, and aerial cyber security, as well as privacy and anonymity in networks and systems. The research work of her group has been recognized multiple times by the Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure program of GSMA, the GSM Association.

Christina co-chaired the TPCs of NDSS'25, NDSS'24, and ACNS'24. She served on the Executive Committee of ACM SIGSAC from 2021 to 2025, and as vice-chair of the ACM SIGSAC PROTECT committee from 2024 to 2026. She has been a member of the Steering Committee of NDSS (Network and Distributed System Security Symposium) since 2025 and was a Steering Committee member of ACM WiSec (ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks) between 2018 and 2026, ACM WiSec TPC Co-Chair in 2018 and ACM WiSec General Chair in 2021. She joined the Next Generation Mobile Systems Security Advisory Committee (https://www.ngsac.org/) in 2025.

Christina holds a Ph.D. and a graduate degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Before embarking on the academic career track, Christina worked at the European Space Agency.

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Christina Pöpper is a tenured Professor of Computer Science at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). She is the Director of Research Impact at the Center for Cyber Security at NYUAD, and a Global Network Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. At NYUAD, she is heading the Cyber Security & Privacy (CSP-) Lab. Christina's research interests are cyber security and privacy, with a focus on wireless and communication security, incl. cellular/mobile network security (5G, nextG), secure localization, and aerial cyber security, as well as privacy and anonymity in networks and systems. The research work of her group has been recognized multiple times by the Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure program of GSMA, the GSM Association.

Christina co-chaired the TPCs of NDSS'25, NDSS'24, and ACNS'24. She served on the Executive Committee of ACM SIGSAC from 2021 to 2025, and as vice-chair of the ACM SIGSAC PROTECT committee from 2024 to 2026. She has been a member of the Steering Committee of NDSS (Network and Distributed System Security Symposium) since 2025 and was a Steering Committee member of ACM WiSec (ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks) between 2018 and 2026, ACM WiSec TPC Co-Chair in 2018 and ACM WiSec General Chair in 2021. She joined the Next Generation Mobile Systems Security Advisory Committee (https://www.ngsac.org/) in 2025.

Christina holds a Ph.D. and a graduate degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Before embarking on the academic career track, Christina worked at the European Space Agency.

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An executive in Booz Allen’s Chief Technology Office (CTO), Mr. Christou leads the Edge/NextG core tech business area. This involves leading the development of Edge Cloud, IoT, and NextG solutions, the Booz Allen state of the art 5G/NextG test facility, and the delivery of Edge, 5G, spectrum, and NextG related projects across multiple markets, including DoD, U.S. Federal, and commercial. In his role, Mr. Christou leads the development of state-of-the-art AI native RAN technologies and edge cloud/IoT solutions to extend cloud services to small form factor products. Mr. Christou currently serves on the Executive Committee of the National Spectrum Consortium (NSC).

Chris has over 25 years of experience engineering, designing, testing, and deploying cloud environments, networks, and IT systems for commercial, civilian, and defense clients. Since joining Booz Allen in 2002, he has led projects related to the deployment of secure cloud environments, the design of software-defined networks (SDN), the engineering of enterprise-wide IT systems, and the integration of unified communications systems. Before joining Booz Allen, Chris was a network design and planning engineer for UUNet, which was then the largest internet backbone in the world. Prior to UUNET, Chris worked as a telecommunications engineer for Mitretek Systems and a software developer for Hughes/Raytheon STX.

Chris earned a M.S. degree in Telecommunications and a Graduate Certificate in Engineering from the University of Maryland School of Engineering, College Park. He earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia and has completed coursework in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. Chris holds Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Juniper, TMF, and SDN certifications.

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At the beginning of 2023, Damien Lucas joined Scaleway, the cloud provider of the iliad Group, as Chief Executive Officer, with one objective: to turn it into a European hyperscaler. This ambition is taking shape notably through the deployment of the largest AI computing capacity in Europe, but also through expansion beyond France’s borders.

Lucas’s conviction: Europe urgently needs high-performance and competitive cloud providers capable of ensuring the long-term sustainability of its industry and innovation.

A graduate of CentraleSupélec, one of France’s leading engineering schools, Lucas is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the tech ecosystem. While still a student, he joined the development team of VLC Media Player and led the transition of the software to open source. In 2003, he co-founded Anevia, a video streaming software developer, which was acquired by Ateme in 2020. In this context, Lucas led several major projects, notably international expansion through the opening of subsidiaries abroad, consolidation operations, and an initial public offering.

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Danijela Cabric is a Professor in the Electrical andComputer Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.She received M.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2001 andPh.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 2007, both in ElectricalEngineering. In 2008, she joined UCLA as an Assistant Professor, where sheheads Cognitive Reconfigurable Embedded Systems lab. Her current researchprojects include novel radio architectures, signal processing, communications,machine learning and networking techniques for spectrum sharing, 5Gmillimeter-wave, massive MIMO and IoT systems.

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She served as a principalinvestigator in the three large cross-disciplinary multi-university centersincluding SRC/JUMP ComSenTer and CONIX, and NSF SpectrumX. Prof. Cabric was arecipient of the Samueli Fellowship in 2008, the Okawa Foundation ResearchGrant in 2009, Hellman Fellowship in 2012 and the National Science FoundationFaculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2012, and the QualcommFaculty Award in 2020 and 2021. She is an IEEE Fellow.

Devang Patel is a GPU Cluster Network Architect at AMD, where he designs large-scale AI/ML clusters. Drawing on prior experience at hyper-scalers, service provider, enterprise, and network vendor, he brings a broad perspective on networking at scale.

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Doru Calin is AVP and Head of the MediaTek USA Advanced Mobile Wireless Research Center, and Lead Research Scientist for 6G. He leads MediaTek's advanced research on next-generation cellular technologies, driving breakthroughs at the intersection of 6G and AI. His responsibilities span research incubation and thought leadership; proof-of-concept development and demonstrations with industry partners; ecosystem advocacy in the U.S. and strategic contributions to 3GPP; academic partnerships with leading universities; and regulatory research with the U.S. Government.

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Dr. Calin began his career at Motorola Research Labs in Paris, France. He then joined Bell Labs in New Jersey, where he led the creation and incubation of novel technologies from concept through field trials in customer networks and market adoption, and became a Bell Labs Fellow. At Nokia, he was Senior Director and Edge Cloud Innovation Domain Leader in the Mobile Networks CTO organization, and later Head of Private Wireless Networks for Digital Industries in North America, one of the fastest-growing businesses within Nokia Enterprise.

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Since 2010, he has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City. He is active in the IEEE community, having served as an Editor of IEEE Wireless Communications and an Associate Editor of IEEE Communications Letters, as well as an Editorial Board Member of Springer's Wireless Networks.

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Dr. Calin received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, and his Ph.D. (High Honors) in Computer Science from the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France.

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Dr. Doug Kirkpatrick is the CTO at Eridan, where he leads the development of advanced radio architectures for next-generation wireless networks. Doug is a VC and former Chief Scientist at DARPA, where he led projects ranging from rapid DNA synthesis to real-time holographic displays. Dr. Kirkpatrick received his BS degrees (Physics & Mathematics) from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. in Physics from MIT. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and has authored more than 30 journal articles and 60 US and international patents. He is actively engaged with Northeastern University on advancing distributed MIMO research.

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Douglas Castor is Vice President and Head ofWireless Research at InterDigital, where he leads the incubation anddevelopment of emerging technologies for wireless systems. He has more than 25years of experience in the wireless industry, spanning technology strategy,product development, and research innovation across 3G through 6G mobilesystems and Wi-Fi technologies.

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Key focus areas under Doug’s leadership includeAI-Native approaches for 6G RAN and services, performance enhancements throughextreme MIMO and advanced coding techniques, the enablement of near-zero-powercellular modems, increased flexibility in quality-of-service architectures, andthe integration of communication and computing systems.

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Doug is an industry leader and holds electedpositions as Co-Chair of the Next G Alliance Steering Committee and Vice-Chairof its Technology Roadmap Working Group. He is also a founder and leader of the6G World 6G Symposium.

Theodore (Ted) S. Rappaport (tsr@nyu.edu) is the David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University (NYU), and is also a professor in the NYU Courant Computer Science Department and the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He founded the NYU WIRELESS research center in 2012, as well as the wireless research centers at the University of Texas at Austin (WNCG) and Virginia Tech (MPRG) earlier in his career.

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He has authored or co-authored widely used textbooks on wireless communications, millimeter-wave communications, smart antennas, and simulation. He has provided foundational knowledge for wireless system design and radio propagation channels used to create the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard, the first U.S. digital TDMA and CDMA standards, and the first public Wi-Fi hotspots. He also led the global adoption of millimeter-wave and sub-terahertz frequencies for 5G, 6G, and beyond.

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His work influenced the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to open the world’s first mobile telephone spectrum in the millimeter-wave bands between 2014 and 2016 as part of the FCC Spectrum Frontiers ruling. He again led the FCC to open spectrum in the sub-terahertz bands above 95 GHz through the FCC Spectrum Horizons ruling between 2018 and 2019.

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Prof. Rappaport founded two businesses that were later sold to publicly traded companies — TSR Technologies, Inc., which pioneered software-defined radios for cellphone/paging over-the-air intercept and the first Emergency-911 (E911) cellphone position location system, and Wireless Valley Communications, Inc., a leader in site-specific wireless deployment. He also served as an advisor to Straight Path Communications, which sold 5G millimeter-wave spectrum to Verizon.

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He is a licensed Professional Engineer and a member of the Wireless Hall of Fame, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors. He is a recipient of IEEE’s Eric Sumner Award and a life member of the American Radio Relay League. His ham radio call sign is N9NB.

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Egil Gronstad is the Senior Director of Emerging Technologies and Innovation for T-Mobile US. In this role, Egil is leading Advanced Technology Development and Strategic initiatives focusing primarily on 6G, Network Architecture Evolution including AI-RAN, Non-Terrestrial Networks and various emerging technologies. He is also leading Technology Innovation activities including the Innovation HUB where internal and external partners are collaborating to develop technologies to solve business problems. Furthermore, Egil is leading spectrum evaluations and strategies and guiding related standards activities to secure long-term alignment between business objectives, standards, spectrum, technologies and ecosystem.

Egil has 30+ years of experience in product marketing, product development and technology management in the mobile wireless industry. Prior to joining T-Mobile, he has held Technology, Marketing and Strategy roles as Vice President for Cricket Wireless, Clearwire and Ericsson. Egil has a proven track record in defining, developing and introducing new technologies for the wireless telecommunications market, and has been a featured speaker at various industry conferences.

Egil is a graduate of University of California, Santa Barbara, where he received his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

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Gerhard P. Fettweis, earned a Ph.D. under H. Meyr at RWTHAachen (Germany) in 1990. After a postdoc at IBM Research, San Jose, he joined TCSI, Berkeley, USA. Since 1994 he is Vodafone Chair Professor at TU Dresden, Germany. Since 2018 he is also founding Scientific Director & CEO of the Barkhausen Institute. He researches wireless communications and chip design, coordinates 5G++Lab Germany and the German Cluster-for-Future SEMECO. His team spun-out 30 tech startups, and he initiated 6 platform entities. Gerhard is member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), the German Academy of Engineering (Acatech), the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of IEEE, VDE/ITG, National Academy ofInventors, EURASIP, WWRF, and DATE. He is active in organizing IEEE conferences, was on the board pf public companies in Germany, Switzerland,  and USA (Nasdaq). He has received numerous awards, the most recent one being the inaugural Bavarian Pioneer Award 2025.

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Glenn Reynolds is Nokia’s Vice President for Government Affairs, Americas. In this role, he heads the company’s Washington, D.C. office and leads its engagement with Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

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Glenn has extensive experience in communications policy, having served in senior positions in both industry and government. As Chief of Staff for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Glenn supported the Assistant Secretary in the agency’s role as principal advisor to the president on communications policy. This included the agency’s efforts in the areas of spectrum, broadband, and internet policy. He previously held a number of senior positions at the FCC, including Deputy Chief of the Wireline Bureau.

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On the industry side, Glenn is an experienced public policy advocate for companies in the communications sector. He served as Regulatory Vice President for both BellSouth and USTelecom, with responsibility for leading policy advocacy at the FCC and Executive Branch agencies. Glenn has also headed government affairs for the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and iconectiv.

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He holds both an undergraduate and a law degree from the University of Virginia.

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Guru Parulkar is Head of Bell Labs at Nokia. Previously, he held research leadership roles at Stanford University, where he was involved in pioneering work on software-defined networking (SDN), and later helped lead the Open Networking Foundation and ON.Lab in advancing SDN and open networking. His career has spanned academia, research, startups, and industry, including leadership roles at Intel and several technology ventures. Earlier, he was a professor of Computer Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Guru holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Delaware and is a Fellow of both the ACM and IEEE.

Harish Viswanathan is Head of the Radio Systems Research Lab at Nokia Bell Labs. He leads research in next-generation wireless systems spanning 5G-Advanced, 6G, AI-native networks, integrated sensing and communications, semantic communications, and emerging wireless architectures. Throughout his career, he has played a leading role in wireless technology innovation, standardization, and commercialization, contributing to multiple generations of cellular systems. His current research focuses on AI-driven radio systems, future network architectures, and the evolution of wireless networks to support intelligent and autonomous applications.

Jakob Hoydis is a Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIAworking on the intersection of machine learning and wireless communications.Prior to this, he was Head of a research department at Nokia Bell Labs, France,and co-founder of the social network SPRAED. He obtained the diploma degree inelectrical engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and the Ph.D.degree from Supéléc, France. From 2019-2021, he was chair of the IEEE COMSOCEmerging Technology Initiative on Machine Learning as well as Editor of theIEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

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He is recipient of the 2019 VTG IDE Johann-Philipp-ReisPrize, the 2019 IEEE SEE Glavieux Prize, the 2018 IEEE Marconi Prize PaperAward, the 2015 IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize, the IEEE WCNC 2014 Best PaperAward, the 2013 VDE ITG Förderpreis Award, and the 2012 Publication Prize ofthe Supéléc Foundation. He has received the 2018 Nokia AI Innovation Award, aswell as the 2018 and 2019 Nokia France Top Inventor Awards. He is a co-authorof the textbook “Massive MIMO Networks: Spectral, Energy, and HardwareEfficiency” (2017). He is a 2023 Distinguished Industry Speaker of the IEEESignal Processing Society as well as an IEEE Fellow.

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He is one of the maintainers and core developers of Sionna,a GPU-accelerated open-source link-level simulator for next-generationcommunication systems.

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Joel Brand leads Marvell’s Physical AI and Wireless business, whereMarvell is the leading supplier of 5G-optimized silicon for the Radio AccessNetwork (RAN). In this role, Joel works closely with customers and ecosystempartners to develop next-generation silicon solutions, including AI-RANdeployments in collaboration with NVIDIA.

With more than 30 years of experience in the telecom, networking,and wireless industries, Joel has led product teams responsible for definingand delivering cutting-edge infrastructure solutions. Before joining Marvell,he was a founding member and Vice President of Products at Kumu Networks, wherehe helped develop full-duplex wireless technology designed to dramaticallyimprove spectral efficiency. He previously held executive positions at wirelessand software-defined networking startups that were acquired or went public,like Bytemobile and Ruckus Wireless.

Joel holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Engineering from the Technion– Israel Institute of Technology, and an MBA from National University in SanDiego.

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Joe Madden founded Mobile Experts in 2007, and has gradually become the industry’s most respected wireless analyst. Mr. Madden has accurately predicted Digital Predistortion, Remote Radio Heads, Small Cells, and 5G Fixed Wireless. He nailed the failure of femtocells and the slow growth of IoT, vRAN, and Open RAN. He is currently investigating the collision of AI with Mobile Telecom, and has recently published a “manifesto” on how mobile operators can enter the AIinference market with Physical AI.

Joe leads the Mobile Experts team in analysis of wireless communications, AI, and EdgeComputing. Education: UCLA and Stanford for Physics and Business. Despite years on the business side of Silicon Valley, he still obeys the laws of physics.

Joe Madden founded Mobile Experts in 2007, and has gradually become the industry’s most respected wireless analyst. Mr. Madden has accurately predicted Digital Predistortion, Remote Radio Heads, Small Cells, and 5G Fixed Wireless. He nailed the failure of femtocells and the slow growth of IoT, vRAN, and Open RAN. He is currently investigating the collision of AI with Mobile Telecom, and has recently published a “manifesto” on how mobile operators can enter the AIinference market with Physical AI.

Joe leads the Mobile Experts team in analysis of wireless communications, AI, and EdgeComputing. Education: UCLA and Stanford for Physics and Business. Despite years on the business side of Silicon Valley, he still obeys the laws of physics.

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A veteran of the mobile industry previously a board member of the Open RAN Policy Coalition, 5G Americas, and co-chair of the Industry Engagement Focus Group for the O-RAN Alliance, John Baker is a sought-after industry speaker.

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He leads the 5G Open RAN ecosystem, intent on disrupting the telecommunications market by transforming operator network for fixed, mobile and NTN space segments.

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A visionary and driving force driving business strategy, John is at the forefront in driving to change operator views on wireless infrastructure deployment—promoting a software-focused approach to innovation, with no ties to supporting legacy hardware.

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John held senior positions with leading wireless companies, including:

• SVP Ecosystem business Development at Mavenir

• GM Mobility Infrastructure at Spirent Communications

• VP & GM Network Solutions at CommScope

• VP & GM Base Stations at Nokia

• VP of Technology and Chief Technology Officer at Pacific Bell Mobile Services

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John also contributed significantly to the development of the GSM and 3GPP standards. John is frequently quoted in major wireless industry publications including Wireless Week, Fierce Wireless, Light Reading, SDX Central, RCR Wireless and Mobile World Live.

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Dr. de Pablo is the inaugural Anne & Joel Ehrenkratz Executive Vice President for Global Science and Technology at NYU and the Executive Dean of NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering. In these roles, he leads cross-university, multidisciplinary, and globally focused initiatives aimed at accelerating NYU’s science and technology enterprise to address humanity’s most pressing challenges.

A renowned leader in materials science, his research focuses on the thermophysical properties of soft materials and molecular engineering. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Physical Society.

He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Kaushik Chowdhury holds the Chandra Family Endowed Distinguished Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering #2 at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is a member of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG). He earned his B.Eng. from VJTI Mumbai, his M.S. from the University of Cincinnati, and his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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Prior to joining UT Austin, he served for fifteen years as a professor at Northeastern University in Boston. His research spans applied machine learning for wireless systems, including deep learning for spectrum sensing and sharing, RF cybersecurity, multimodal sensor fusion, and digital twins. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

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His work has been recognized with major honors, including being a finalist for the 2023 U.S. Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the ONR Director of Research Early Career Award, and the NSF CAREER Award. He has received best paper awards at leading venues such as IEEE INFOCOM, ICC, DySPAN, and GLOBECOM.

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Kiran Mukkavilli is a Senior Director of Engineering at Qualcomm, where he leads advanced wireless research spanning 6G, AI-enabled wireless systems, integrated sensing and communications, positioning, and robotics. He works across research, product, and ecosystem teams to translate emerging wireless technologies into practical platforms and demonstrations. His current work focuses on the convergence of AI, communications, sensing, and positioning and their role in shaping future intelligent wireless systems.

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Ludovic Righetti is jointly appointed in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the Tandon School of Engineering of New York University. He is also holder of an International Chair at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute. He co-created and co-directs the Center for Robotics and Embodied Intelligence. He is also a member of the Center for Responsible AI, Center for Urban Science and Progress and Center for Advanced Technology in Telecommunications.

He leads the Machines in Motion Laboratory, where his research focuses on the planning and control of movements for autonomous robots, with a special emphasis on legged locomotion and manipulation. He is more broadly interested in questions at the intersection of decision-making, automatic control, optimization, applied dynamical systems and machine learning and their application to physical systems. He also cares about the societal implications of his work and more broadly he is interested in use of technology that can empower people, improve quality of life and help create more just, open and equal societies.

He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) where he received an engineering diploma in Computer Science (eq. M.Sc.) and a Doctorate in Science under the supervision of Professor Auke Ijspeert. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab with Professor Stefan Schaal (University of Southern California) and a independent research group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany. He moved to New York University in September 2017.

He has received several awards, most notably the 2010 Georges Giralt PhD Award given by the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) for the best robotics thesis in Europe, the 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Best Paper Award, the 2016 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award, the 2016 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize from the German Research Foundation and NYU's 2024 Jacobs Excellence in Education Innovation Award.

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Luiz Abud is Vice President, Commercial and Technology Partnerships at AST SpaceMobile, with 20+ years of global leadership in telecommunications and technology. He has led commercial strategy, strategic partnerships, and growth initiatives at AST SpaceMobile, Nokia, Nera Networks, and Ceragon. Luiz holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineering and three MBAs spanning Business Management, Marketing, and Strategic Project Management. Based in Dallas, he is passionate about harnessing technology to connect people and advance a more connected world.

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I joined Ericsson in 1994 and over the past three decadesI've had the opportunity to work with the latest technologies in one of themost interesting fields in the industry, leading to the current use of mobilebroadband in almost everything we do. For eight years, it was my privilege tohead up Ericsson Research, which employs over 700 world-class researchersaround the globe.

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To be part of this development and to work on the technologyused by so many people is truly inspiring.

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I enjoy sharing my knowledge of the telecommunicationsindustry and regularly deliver keynote presentations about topics such as 5G,IoT and future technologies. I'd welcome the opportunity to speak at futureevents and to connect with those working in academia or the wider Informationand Communication Technology (ICT) industry who share a similar passion forresearch.

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I hold a Master of Science degree from Linköping Universityof Technology, Sweden, and a Ph.D. in Radio Communication Systems from theRoyal Institute of Technology, where I’ve also been adjunct Professor inWireless Infrastructures between 2013 and 2025.

Manish is a well-respected industryleader with over 25 years of experience and specializes in Wireless Networks.Manish is currently the CTO of Telecom Systems Business at Dell Technologies.Before joining Dell, Manish was at Meta, fka Facebook, where he headed theWireless Ecosystems Program for Open RAN and Open Core Networks; he was heavilyinvolved with O-RAN Alliance and TIP (Telecom Infra Project). He currentlyserves on the ATIS Board. For three consecutive years, he also served on theBoard of Small Cell Forum. Manish is a Thought Leader with good balance oftechnology depth and business acumen. 

Prior to Meta, Manish was VP of NetworkServices at Tech Mahindra. And prior to that Manish served as Radisys’ CTOwhere he spearheaded the company’s strategic initiatives in SDN, NFV and VoLTE(Voice-over-LTE). Prior to Radisys, Manish was the VP of Product Management atContinuous Computing, where he led the startup’s spectacular growth in SmallCells and DPI. During the course of his career Manish held various Managementand Architect positions at Intel, Trillium Digital Systems and C-DOT. 

Manish holds an MS degree from I.I.Sc.Bangalore.

Manish routinely features as a keynotespeaker at leading industry events. He is a thoughtful writer with numerouspublished papers, books and articles. Manish holds multiple patents in fieldsof computing and communications.

Mario Rodriguez leads the GitHub Product team as Chief Product Officer. His core identity is being a learner and his passion is creating developer tools—so much so that he has spent the last 20 years living that mission in leadership roles across Microsoft and GitHub. Mario most recently oversaw GitHub’s AI strategy and the GitHub Copilot product line, launching and growing Copilot across thousands of organizations and millions of users. Mario spends time outside of GitHub with his wife and two daughters. He also co-chairs and founded a charter school in an effort to progress education in rural regions of the United States.

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Marko Keskinen is CEO Europe at Skylo Technologies, leading business operations and commercial expansion where mobile networks meet satellite connectivity. A former Nokia executive and co-founder of RANIOT Technologies (acquired by Skylo in 2020), he brings over two decades in wireless leadership and a business-first view of what it takes to scale TN-NTN connectivity - the economics, the spectrum, the integration.

Dr. Martin Weiss is currently the Director for FutureG Applied Research, and Technical Lead for Resilient and Open Commercial Solutions and Integrated Sensing and Communication within the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering. In this capacity, Dr. Weiss oversees multiple efforts to promote FutureG applied research, which enable government, academia, and industry to build commercially useful solutions to meet the Department of War’s wireless communications needs.

Notably, this includes the OCUDU and the RAPID projects. Prior to joining the FutureG Office, Dr. Weiss was a Professor in the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems in the School of Computing and Information and is Associate Director of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. He was a founding member of SpectrumX, a National Science Foundation-funded Spectrum Innovation Institute. He earned his PhD. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, Master of Science in Engineering in Computer, Control, and Information Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University. His research interest is on the governance of technological systems and infrastructures. He has been studying dynamic spectrum access, and the economic perspective of spectrum sharing and mobile telecommunication standards such as 3GPP

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Misha Kuperman is Chief Reliability Officer at Zscaler, where he leads global cloud strategy, infrastructure, and operations. He is accountable for the growth, reliability and resilience of the platform that supports over 75 million enterprise users. More than half of the Fortune 500 and over 40% of the Global 2000 run on Zscaler. As Zscaler extends zero trust to AI applications and autonomous agents, Misha leads the infrastructure strategy that supports secure AI adoption at global scale.

Misha leads Zscaler’s Business Continuity Cloud and Premium Connectivity businesses, helping customers sustain critical operations through disruptions and maintain reliable connectivity across regions. His team oversees the carrier, data center, and technology partnerships that underpin Zscaler’s global reach. He also directs the company’s cloud reliability strategy, including the use of AI to accelerate incident investigation and improve service recovery.

Misha brings more than 30 years of experience building and scaling global technology platforms across cloud security, networking, and application delivery. Before joining Zscaler, he led business development for emerging products and enterprise solutions at Akamai. Earlier, as Vice President of Operations at Cotendo, he built the global infrastructure and strategic partnerships that supported the company’s growth and helped position it for acquisition by Akamai.

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Nada Golmie, a Fellow of IEEE, earned her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2002. She has been a research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 1993. From 2014 to 2022, she served as the chief of the Wireless Networks Division at NIST and is currently a NIST Fellow in the Communications Technology Laboratory.

Her research focuses on wireless communication systems and protocols, propagation measurement and modeling, next-generation wireless technologies, and millimeter-wave communication systems. She has authored over 200 technical papers presented at professional conferences and journals and has contributed to international standards organizations and industry-led consortia.

Currently, she leads several projects related to the modeling and evaluation of future generation wireless systems and protocols and chairs the NextG Channel Model Alliance.

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Nada Golmie, a Fellow of IEEE, earned her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2002. She has been a research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 1993. From 2014 to 2022, she served as the chief of the Wireless Networks Division at NIST and is currently a NIST Fellow in the Communications Technology Laboratory.

Her research focuses on wireless communication systems and protocols, propagation measurement and modeling, next-generation wireless technologies, and millimeter-wave communication systems. She has authored over 200 technical papers presented at professional conferences and journals and has contributed to international standards organizations and industry-led consortia.

Currently, she leads several projects related to the modeling and evaluation of future generation wireless systems and protocols and chairs the NextG Channel Model Alliance.

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I joined Stanford in 1995 just as the Internet was exploding in growth. My research group “The McKeown Group” has worked on lots of fun projects. From 1995-2005 we focussed on making the Internet faster - Internet router designs, crossbar scheduling algorithms for switched backplanes, lookup algorithms and novel memories. From 2005, we focussed on enabling the internet to evolve, which led to Software Defined Networking (SDN), Programmable Forwarding (P4 and Tofino), Mininet, NetFPGA and VNS. Along the way we worked on video streaming algorithms now used by Netflix; the size of a router buffer; and congestion control algorithms. As of 2026, we are working on AI fabrics and low-cost underwater vehicles for oceanographic research.

Oğuz is CTO, AI & Autonomous Networks, Nokia, with 25+ years of experience at the intersection of AI, edge cloud, and wireless networking. His work bridges research and real-world deployment at scale, from architecting Intel’s data center AI stack to co-founding Ananki (acquired by Intel) and serving as co-PI on the DARPA Pronto program. He is the sole inventor on 40+ awarded patents, co-author of two technical books on 5G and edge systems, and a contributor to 3GPP and O-RAN.

Oğuz is CTO, AI & Autonomous Networks, Nokia, with 25+ years of experience at the intersection of AI, edge cloud, and wireless networking. His work bridges research and real-world deployment at scale, from architecting Intel’s data center AI stack to co-founding Ananki (acquired by Intel) and serving as co-PI on the DARPA Pronto program. He is the sole inventor on 40+ awarded patents, co-author of two technical books on 5G and edge systems, and a contributor to 3GPP and O-RAN.

Pallavi Mahajan is a globally recognised technology and business leader with a proven record of incubating, building and scaling new ventures, converting frontier innovation into commercially resilient, market leading platforms. She drives growth by orchestrating open ecosystems, strategic partnerships and deep industry collaboration that have shaped platform economics and accelerated real-world adoption and durable value creation at scale.

Across her career, she has operated at the front edge of disruption, turning scientific breakthroughs into industry-defining shifts across datacenter infrastructure, AI, supercomputing and networking.

As Chief Technology and AI Officer at Nokia, Pallavi leads Nokia’s technology, AI and platform strategy as well as its strategic partnerships, defining Nokia’s roadmap, shaping its portfolio and driving the shift to AI-native networks. A named inventor on multiple US patents, Pallavi brings a global perspective shaped by leadership roles across Asia, Europe and North America at Intel, HPE and Juniper Networks.

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Pallavi Mahajan is a globally recognised technology and business leader with a proven record of incubating, building and scaling new ventures, converting frontier innovation into commercially resilient, market leading platforms. She drives growth by orchestrating open ecosystems, strategic partnerships and deep industry collaboration that have shaped platform economics and accelerated real-world adoption and durable value creation at scale.

Across her career, she has operated at the front edge of disruption, turning scientific breakthroughs into industry-defining shifts across datacenter infrastructure, AI, supercomputing and networking.

As Chief Technology and AI Officer at Nokia, Pallavi leads Nokia’s technology, AI and platform strategy as well as its strategic partnerships, defining Nokia’s roadmap, shaping its portfolio and driving the shift to AI-native networks. A named inventor on multiple US patents, Pallavi brings a global perspective shaped by leadership roles across Asia, Europe and North America at Intel, HPE and Juniper Networks.

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Pavan has joined Nokia in February, as SVP and CTO for Data Center Networks. Pavan is responsible for driving Nokia's technology strategy and architecture for AI Networking and ensure we’re delivering scalable, differentiated solutions to our customers across optical, IP and switching domains. Pavan is leading Nokia’s technology strategy for AI infrastructure including optical IO, new materials, distributed inference and WAN routing.

Pavan brings over 25 years of deep expertise in end-to-end network architecture, and technology strategy, with a strong track record of shaping large scale, next-generation solutions for telcos, hyperscalers, and global enterprises. He joins us from Juniper Networks, where he most recently led a global team for Technical Solutions Architecture. His background includes extensive work spanning Networking for AI-DCs, large scale routing, cloud native networking, Telco cloud, AIOps, and advanced network security. He partnered closely with customers to shape end to end designs that deliver performance, agility, and operational excellence. He has also held technical and architectural roles across the networking industry earlier in his career. Pavan has a master's degree in information and data science from UC Berkeley.

Pavan has joined Nokia in February, as SVP and CTO for Data Center Networks. Pavan is responsible for driving Nokia's technology strategy and architecture for AI Networking and ensure we’re delivering scalable, differentiated solutions to our customers across optical, IP and switching domains. Pavan is leading Nokia’s technology strategy for AI infrastructure including optical IO, new materials, distributed inference and WAN routing.

Pavan brings over 25 years of deep expertise in end-to-end network architecture, and technology strategy, with a strong track record of shaping large scale, next-generation solutions for telcos, hyperscalers, and global enterprises. He joins us from Juniper Networks, where he most recently led a global team for Technical Solutions Architecture. His background includes extensive work spanning Networking for AI-DCs, large scale routing, cloud native networking, Telco cloud, AIOps, and advanced network security. He partnered closely with customers to shape end to end designs that deliver performance, agility, and operational excellence. He has also held technical and architectural roles across the networking industry earlier in his career. Pavan has a master's degree in information and data science from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Rajeev Koodli is a distinguished global technology leader with over two decades of pioneering work in mobile communications, Internetworking and distributed cloud computing. With his vast expertise in leadership, strategy, architecture, product development, research, and innovation, Dr. Koodli has influenced the telecommunications and technology sectors through his transformative contributions to 4G/5G systems, hyperscale cloud infrastructure, IPv6 networking, and AI. His innovations have had significant impact on global mobile networking standards and his technical leadership has contributed to reshaping the industry.

Dr. Roberto Padovani was Executive Vice President and Fellow at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. He served as the company's Chief Technology Officer from 2002 to 2011.Dr. Padovani received a laureate degree from the University of Padova, Italy and MS and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, all in electrical and computer engineering. He joined Qualcomm in 1986, after two years at M/A-COM Linkabit where he was involved in the design and development of satellite communications systems, secure video systems, and error-correcting coding equipment. During his tenure at Qualcomm, Dr. Padovani was involved in the research and development of digital communication systems with emphasis on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless technology systems. He was involved in the initial design, development, and standardization of IS-95 CDMA systems. His research and inventions in this field have led to the worldwide standardization and commercialization of CDMA technology for second- and third-generation cellular systems. He has also led the design and development of an IP-based, high-speed wide-area wireless data technology, which led to the deployment of high-speed data services on third generation wireless networks across the globe.

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Dr. Padovani holds more than 80 patents on wireless systems. He has published numerous technical papers in the digital communications field and was the co-recipient of the 1991 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Best Paper Award for a fundamental paper on the capacity of CDMA cellular systems. In 2009 he received the IEEE Eric. E. Sumner Award “for pioneering innovations in wireless communications, particularly to the evolution of CDMA for wireless broadband data” and in 2016 the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal “For innovations enabling efficient, wideband, wireless access to the Internet, that is central to all third-generation cellular networks.”He is an IEEE Fellow and an Affiliate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006.

Roger Piqueras Jover is a security engineering leader and researcher with more than 15 years of experience in cellular, telecom and wireless security. He founded the Connectivity Security team in Android Platform Security at Google, where he drove baseband hardening, protections against false base stations, and 5G/6G security standards strategy. Before that, he was a security architect at a large financial company and a security researcher at one of the largest telecom operators in the world. A contributor to 3GPP and GSMA and former advisory board chair of an academia-industry 5G security partnership, he has published widely, holds over 20 patents, and speaks regularly at security conferences.

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Ronnie Vasishta leads all aspects of NVIDIA’s telecom vertical including business management, product definition, development, and go-to-market strategy. As Senior Vice President – Telecom at NVIDIA, his organization is responsible for defining and architecting next-generation virtualized, open 5G Advanced and 6G networks, which act as a software-defined overlay on telecommunication networks powered by accelerated computing. His team is working with telecom operators around the world on their transformation journeys using NVIDIA’s full-stack accelerated computing and AI platform and extensive developer ecosystems.

Ronnie joined NVIDIA in 2020 from Intel, where he most recently served as the Vice President and General Manager of the Network and Configurable Logic Division, Data Products Group. At Intel, Ronnie’s team managed the company’s programmable business with telecom manufacturers and communication service providers.

Ronnie formerly served as CEO of privately held eASIC, which focused on the telecom and storage markets and was sold to Intel in 2018. Previously, he was Vice President of Technical Marketing at LSI Logic, a pioneer in the custom ASIC business. At LSI Logic, he also held a series of engineering roles extending across wafer processing, chip design, IP, and packaging.

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Dr. Satoshi Konishi joined KDDI in 1993. He was involved in research and development for wireless communication systems, including LEO satellites, mesh-type fixed wireless access (FWA), and mobile communication systems. He developed the wireless packet scheduler for LTE base stations and led LTE commercialization from 2008 to 2012 for KDDI with various network vendors, including Motorola (now Nokia).

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Before and during that period, he also led the performance evaluation technical group for IMT-Advanced systems in ITU-R and served as Chair of the Technical Evaluation Group in 3GPP2.

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From 2014, he successfully developed and commercialized new functions such as carrier aggregation (CA), VoLTE, and femtocells for the LTE-Advanced system with vendors including Nokia, serving as General Manager and Head of the Mobile Access Technology Department at KDDI Corporation.

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Since 2017, he has conducted numerous demonstrations using 5G and led 5G commercialization at KDDI as General Manager and Head of the Next Generation Network Development Department.

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Since April 2020, he has led various cutting-edge technologies, including optical and wireless networks, AI, security, and XR, toward the 6G era as Executive Vice President and Head of Advanced Technology Laboratories at KDDI Research Inc.

On April 1, 2025, he was appointed President and CEO of KDDI Research Inc.

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Dr. Konishi is a Fellow of IEICE, Japan, and received his Ph.D. in 2006 and MBA in 2017 from Waseda University and Globis University, Japan, respectively.

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Sean Kennedy, Vice President of Nokia Bell Labs, spearheads the Artificial Intelligence Research Lab. He is at the cutting edge of developing next-generation solutions in algorithmic and machine learning, as well as exploring emerging technologies in human sensing devices and the exciting field of quantum computing. Sean’s multinational team is dedicated to tackling industry-critical challenges, creating value for customers, and making a significant business impact.

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With a personal passion for mathematics and computing technologies, Sean is keen on applying his expertise to predict and explain the future implications of artificial intelligence. His current research is focused on advancing machine learning systems to mimic human analytical thinking capabilities.

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Sean is also at the helm of Nokia’s initiatives around responsible AI and its AI Centre of Excellence. He holds a joint Ph.D. in Mathematics and Computer Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Outside of his professional life, Sean enjoys skiing, cycling, and running.

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He is widely recognized for his ability to communicate the complexities of emerging technologies in a clear and accessible way.

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Sean Kennedy, Vice President of Nokia Bell Labs, spearheads the Artificial Intelligence Research Lab. He is at the cutting edge of developing next-generation solutions in algorithmic and machine learning, as well as exploring emerging technologies in human sensing devices and the exciting field of quantum computing. Sean’s multinational team is dedicated to tackling industry-critical challenges, creating value for customers, and making a significant business impact.

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With a personal passion for mathematics and computing technologies, Sean is keen on applying his expertise to predict and explain the future implications of artificial intelligence. His current research is focused on advancing machine learning systems to mimic human analytical thinking capabilities.

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Sean is also at the helm of Nokia’s initiatives around responsible AI and its AI Centre of Excellence. He holds a joint Ph.D. in Mathematics and Computer Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Outside of his professional life, Sean enjoys skiing, cycling, and running.

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He is widely recognized for his ability to communicate the complexities of emerging technologies in a clear and accessible way.

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Sebastián Barros is a global technology and innovation leader with 25 years of experience in telecommunications, spanning operators, vendors, and hyperscalers in senior management roles across technology, strategy, and product management. His career includes executive positions at Ericsson, where he led multimillion-dollar businesses across Latin America, Asia, and Europe; Google Cloud, where he built the telco vertical for Asia; and Liberty Global, where he drove commercial strategy on the operator side. This rare cross-industry vantage point, having sat on every side of the telecom table, informs his distinctive perspective on where the industry is heading.

Throughout his career, Sebastián has been at the forefront of 5G, cloud, edge computing, and Industry 4.0 transformation, leading P&L responsibilities exceeding 500 million USD and pioneering initiatives from private networks and network APIs to some of the earliest IoT sustainability projects in Southeast Asia.

He is the author of three published books and more than 15 research papers exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence and telecommunications, including his work on network-injected intelligence. He is currently completing a doctorate in AI and Machine Learning, combining hands-on industry leadership with rigorous academic research.

Sebastián is also one of the most influential voices in telecom social media, publishing the industry's largest independent newsletter, where his analysis of network strategy, AI economics, and spectrum policy reaches thousands of decision-makers across the global telecom ecosystem. He is a member of Mensa International.

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Soma Velayutham is the vice president for AI and telecoms at NVIDIA, where he is responsible fordeveloping and evangelizing AI into telecoms and wireless communications. He is a successful serial intrapreneur and product leader with more than 25 years in the software and high-tech industries. He has incubated and launched multiple software products globally for large corporations. He has 11 patents and the full product-lifecycle experience from R&D to GTM.

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Sree Sankar leads global product strategy and business development for distributed AI infrastructure and monetization in under telecommunications industry vertical at NVIDIA. She brings a rare combination of telecom ecosystem expertise and 10+ years of hands-on AI/ML product leadership — having built and shipped products at scale across Meta, Amazon, HubSpot, and Grabango spanning computer vision, NLP, recommendation systems, and generative AI. Earlier in her career, she held senior leadership roles at Ericsson and Juniper Networks, where she spearheaded entry into new market segments and launched flagship product lines. This unique intersection of telecom and AI makes her a distinctive voice on how the industry can harness distributed AI infrastructure to unlock new monetization opportunities in the AI-Native era.

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Sundeep Rangan received the B.A.Sc. from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, all in Electrical Engineering. He has held postdoctoral appointments at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Bell Labs.

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In 2000, he co-founded (with four others) Flarion Technologies, a spin-off of Bell Labs that developed Flash-OFDM — one of the first cellular OFDM data systems and a precursor to 4G technologies, including LTE and WiMAX. In 2006, Flarion was acquired by Qualcomm Technologies, where Dr. Rangan was a Senior Director of Engineering involved in OFDM infrastructure products.

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He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon (formerly NYU Polytechnic) in 2010. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and Associate Director of NYU WIRELESS, an academic–industry research center focused on next-generation wireless systems.

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Sundeep Rangan received the B.A.Sc. from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, all in Electrical Engineering. He has held postdoctoral appointments at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Bell Labs.

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In 2000, he co-founded (with four others) Flarion Technologies, a spin-off of Bell Labs that developed Flash-OFDM — one of the first cellular OFDM data systems and a precursor to 4G technologies, including LTE and WiMAX. In 2006, Flarion was acquired by Qualcomm Technologies, where Dr. Rangan was a Senior Director of Engineering involved in OFDM infrastructure products.

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He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon (formerly NYU Polytechnic) in 2010. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and Associate Director of NYU WIRELESS, an academic–industry research center focused on next-generation wireless systems.

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Mr. Takehiro Nakamura currently serves as Chief Standardization Officer and Corporation Evangelist at NTT DOCOMO, Inc. With extensive experience in R&D and standardization, he has played a pivotal role in advancing radio and network technologies for next generation systems from 2G to 6G.

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Mr. Nakamura has actively contributed to standardization activities in ARIB, ITU, and 3GPP, serving as Vice Chair and Chair of 3GPP TSG-RAN from 2005 to 2013.

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Currently, he leads several projects on Local 5G, millimeter-wave, and 6G within the XG Mobile Promotion Forum(XGMF). He also serves as a board member of 5G-ACIA and as a sub-leader of the Human Augmentation Consortium.

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Dr. Takki Yu is Vice President and Head of the Infra Tech Office at SK Telecom, where he leads R&D on end-to-end mobile communication infrastructure technologies, including Radio Access, Core, Transport, Device, Location, and Network AI.

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His primary research interests focus on advanced mobile communications, including 5G and Beyond 5G (6G) systems, network virtualization and cloud, location technologies, quantum security, and network AI. In particular, he has led the development of 5G technology that enabled the world’s first successful 5G commercialization in Korea, and continues to drive advancements in Beyond 5G and 6G evolution.

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Dr. Yu has served as a Board Director of the NGMN Alliance and a TSC member of the O-RAN Alliance since 2019. In August 2023, he was elected Chair of the Open RAN Industry Alliance (ORIA) following its establishment.

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Click here to see Tido's LinkedIn profile.

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Dr. Tim O'Shea is CTO of DeepSig Inc., where he leads AI-RAN and RF machine learning products, including the world's first AI-native Open RAN macro deployment and industry-leading AI-driven spectrum sensing. He chairs the OCUDU TSC AI-RAN Working Group, serves on the Boards and TSCs of OCUDU and the AI-RAN Alliance, and contributes to 3GPP 6G AI-PHY standardization and IEEE Machine Learning for Communications. An IEEE Fellow and member of the FCC Technological Advisory Council, he was previously a research professor at Virginia Tech and worked at HawkEye 360, Federated Wireless, GNU Radio, Cisco and the U.S. Department of Defense.

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Udayan Mukherjee is currently leading advanced AI and network architecture initiatives at Nokia, focused on the convergence of AI, cloud, and next-generation wireless network and connectivity.

He is the former Intel Senior Fellow and Chief Architect for Intel’s Network & Communications Products, where he led the development of the industry’s first fully virtualized 5G infrastructure software on open architecture through FlexRAN and FlexCore, now deployed globally, while also driving Intel’s NextG technology strategy and contributions to 3GPP and O-RAN standards.

At Intel, he guided silicon and SoC enhancements for networking and advanced AI-driven network systems, including domain-specific LLM and RAG solutions for automation, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis. His work also focused on AI/ML-powered networking, software-defined networking, edge computing, and time-sensitive networking for industrial applications.

Udayan is an active contributor to IEEE, O-RAN Alliance, and TIP, and has been a keynote speaker at major industry forums including IEEE Globecom, WCNC, CTIA, GSMA, and O-RAN Summits. A three-time Intel Achievement Award recipient, he holds more than a dozen patents in networking, wireless processing, and high-availability architectures, and has earned dual master’s degrees in computer science/systems science and industrial engineering.

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Udayan Mukherjee is currently leading advanced AI and network architecture initiatives at Nokia, focused on the convergence of AI, cloud, and next-generation wireless network and connectivity.

He is the former Intel Senior Fellow and Chief Architect for Intel’s Network & Communications Products, where he led the development of the industry’s first fully virtualized 5G infrastructure software on open architecture through FlexRAN and FlexCore, now deployed globally, while also driving Intel’s NextG technology strategy and contributions to 3GPP and O-RAN standards.

At Intel, he guided silicon and SoC enhancements for networking and advanced AI-driven network systems, including domain-specific LLM and RAG solutions for automation, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis. His work also focused on AI/ML-powered networking, software-defined networking, edge computing, and time-sensitive networking for industrial applications.

Udayan is an active contributor to IEEE, O-RAN Alliance, and TIP, and has been a keynote speaker at major industry forums including IEEE Globecom, WCNC, CTIA, GSMA, and O-RAN Summits. A three-time Intel Achievement Award recipient, he holds more than a dozen patents in networking, wireless processing, and high-availability architectures, and has earned dual master’s degrees in computer science/systems science and industrial engineering.

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Ulrich heads the external standardization engagement for Nokia. He is responsible for global and regional standardization including radio spectrum aspects. Ulrich is a Vice President and Executive Committee member of the Global Mobile Supplier Association (GSA). He serves and served various other industry boards such as the Metaverse Standards Forum (MSF), the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network Global Forum (IOWN-GF) and the 5G Association for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA).

Prior to his current role Ulrich was responsible for Nokia Networks Industry Environment activities. Between 2007 and 2012 Ulrich lead the NSN 3GPP standardization team and has served as Head of Delegation to 3GPP.

Between 1996 and 2007, Ulrich held various positions in R&D of Siemens Mobile Networks unit. He was responsible for standardization activities of the core network business unit and managed Siemens 3GPP activities. Ulrich had instrumental role in the definition of the UMTS architecture as well as in set up of project management in 3GPP.

Ulrich holds a Ph.D. from Télécom ParisTech from 1996; his research area was the definition of 3G Radio Interface and his research was part of EU collaborative research program (RACE II ATDMA). He holds a Master Degree (Dipl-Ing) in Telecommunication from the RWTH, Aachen from 1992.

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Valeria Baiamonte is Director of Network Strategy and Transformation at VodafoneThree, where she leads strategic thinking on the future evolution of the company’s network. Her career spans academic research, telecoms regulation and industry leadership, including experience with Politecnico di Torino, Intel, the University of Cambridge, the UK telecoms regulator and Vodafone Group. She has been closely involved in the network strategy supporting the Vodafone and Three merger and brings deep expertise in mobile market evolution, network transformation and next generation technologies.

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See Vandana's LinkedIn profile here.

Ibrahim Volkan Isler is the Rajaram Family Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin and a core faculty member at Texas Robotics. His primary research interests are in the theoretical foundations of robotics and their applications to field systems for environmental monitoring, agriculture, home and lab automation. He has made numerous contributions to the theory of pursuit-evasion games and active sensing. His group has also built and deployed field systems for tracking invasive species with a network of autonomous boats, monitoring wildlife and their habitats with aerial vehicles and yield mapping with aerial and ground vehicles for specialty fruit farms and row crops. Before joining UT, he was a Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Minnesota, and the head of Samsung’s AI Center in NY. He is also the co-founder of Farm Vision Technologies -- a start-up which develops computer vision systems for yield mapping.

He is the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Young Investigator Award. At the UMN, he was awarded McKnight Land-grant Professorship, Institute on the Environment Fellowship and Informatics Institute Fellowship. He was an Editor of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s Conference Editorial Board, the Chair of the Technical Committee on Networked Robotics, Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Robotics and IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. He has also served the robotics community as a program committee member and organizer for numerous conferences including ICRA 2012 (Local Arrangements Chair), WAFR 2010 (co-Chair), WAFR 2014 (co-Chair).

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Dr. Won-Yeol Lee is Vice President and Head of the Network Infra R&D Department at KT. Since joining KT in 2009, he has been responsible for mobile network R&D and has played a key role in the evolution and commercialization of KT’s 4G and 5G networks. In particular, he contributed to the development and deployment of KT’s 5G trial service for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and subsequently to the commercialization of 5G.

Dr. Lee also served as the principal investigator of the 5G AutoDrv project, a Korean government-funded project that demonstrated 5G-enabled autonomous driving services through large-scale field trials. Currently, he leads KT’s 6G R&D activities, focusing on radio access technologies, network architecture, and standardization. His research interests include 6G, Open RAN/AI-RAN, NTN, and quantum networks.

Before joining KT, Dr. Lee worked at LG Telecom (now LG U+) from 1999 to 2004. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electronics Engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.

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Santiago (Yago) Tenorio serves as Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategy and Technology Enablement at Verizon. In his role, Yago leads Verizon’s work in advancing new 5G use cases, works with partners to drive new technology advancements, and maps out the next generation of technologies that Verizon will bring to customers where they live, work, and play.

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Prior to joining Verizon, Yago spent more than 25 years at Vodafone building high-performance teams and is recognized for his expertise in architecting Vodafone’s Open RAN, Cloud Networking, and Network APIs. He served as CTO for Vodafone Ireland and Chief Network Officer in the UK, successfully leading Vodafone’s network coverage for the 2012 London Olympics.

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He is widely respected as an innovator and thought leader in mobile networks, pioneering concepts including Single RAN and Open RAN. Yago has invented and patented technologies including a revolutionary small cell, a novel location system, and the first cloud-based smartphone. He has deployed several world firsts, including the first 5G non-standalone call and the first 5G commercial smartphone connection.

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Yago is known for driving innovation throughout the industry during his tenure as Chairman of the Telecom Infra Project and Chairman of UK start-up Lime Microsystems. For his contributions to the industry, Yago was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK — one of the most prestigious honors across all fields of engineering that very few professionals achieve in their technical careers.