Keynotes
Dan Sjöblom, Director General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS)
Appointed by the Swedish Government, Dan Sjöblom is the Director-General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) since February 1, 2017.
During 2020, he was the Chair of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and serves as a vice Chair in 2021 responsible for international cooperation. In 2020 he also chaired the ITU GSR. Mr. Sjöblom is also during 2021 the vice Chair of EU and EaP electronic communications regulatory platform (EaPeReg). Prior to taking up his position at PTS, Mr. Sjöblom was the Director General of the Swedish Competition Authority from 2009 to 2017.
He is also board member of the Swedish Broadband Council. Mr. Sjöblom performed various functions as a civil servant at the European Commission between 1996-2009. He holds a Master of Laws from Stockholm University.
Edward “Smitty” Smith, Managing Partner, DLA Piper
Edward “Smitty” Smith is a well-known and highly respected former FCC official. He focuses his practice on telecommunications matters and advises clients on the full range of issues in the wireless and satellite sectors, including spectrum policy, auctions, regulatory actions, equipment approvals, rulemakings and enforcement.
Smitty’s experience has made him a leading advisor to clients on issues before the FCC, the U.S. Department of Justice, Congress, state regulators, and state attorneys general. He has advised clients on major telecommunications mergers, successfully obtained regulatory merger approvals at the federal and state levels, negotiated settlements with state attorneys general, and represented clients in meetings with congressional members and staff. Smitty has also led international market entry projects in over 50 countries.
Prior to joining DLA Piper, Smitty was Legal Advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Smitty advised the FCC Chairman on wireless telecommunications, engineering and technology, and consumer affairs. Smitty also oversaw FCC policymaking on such issues as 5G technology, satellites, spectrum sharing, autonomous vehicle communications, small-cell deployment and unmanned aviation systems. Previously, Smitty served as Chief of Staff and Senior Counsel of the Incentive Auction Task Force, a multibillion-dollar radio spectrum reallocation project.
Smitty is also a former Special Advisor at the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. As Special Advisor, Smitty launched the agency’s State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program, a US$350 million grant program to improve the quality of broadband data nationwide.
Sessions
Robert Lesnewich, Peraton Labs
Bob is a Director at Peraton Labs with primary focus on Security and Resiliency of emerging technologies, the supply chain, and critical infrastructures. Starting at Bell Laboratories, he followed a path of Bellcore / Telcordia / ACS – which is now Peraton Labs. Throughout his tenure, he has developed, directed, and consulted on numerous communications technology programs and studies in the assessment of security and vulnerabilities regarding the potential threat and risk of disruption or corruption of communications, so to foster the development of protection and mitigation capabilities – including those across the evolving communication network Supply Chain.
Nadine Hatto, Blu Wireless
Nadine is Director of Technical Marketing at Blu Wireless. Currently based in Canada, she has a focus on Smart cities, Fixed Wireless Access, Defense applications and IEEE 5G. She is a wireless telecommunications expert with over 20 years experience in a wide variety of areas in the wireless industry, and is currently Vice Chair for the Wi-Fi Alliance 60GHz Technical Task Group. Nadine has been at Blu Wireless for 6 years, previously Senior Technical Project Manager for the Wi-Fi team at BlackBerry in Canada and having had numerous management roles at picoChip in the UK and US.
Neill Young, Blu Wireless
Neill is Technical Marketing Manager at Blu Wireless, with a focus on 5G Backhaul, Private Networks and Neutral Host Networks. He has over 20 years’ of experience in building connectivity services, solutions and ecosystems within both mobile network operators and vertical service providers. Neill has been involved with programmes such as the rollout of smart meters and smart grid, introduction of connectivity for the first connected cars, developing smart cities services and development of several strategies and standards such as IoT networks, edge computing, ORAN and private networks. Before joining Blu Wireless, Neill has been working on building new opportunities for 5G in the manufacturing market, focussing particularly on defining new enablers and new ecosystems to serve Industry 4.0.
Mary Nolan, Verizon
Mary Nolan is an Executive Director at Verizon Wireless supporting Network Assurance. She has worked at Verizon for 28 years in a variety of Engineering, Operations and Project Management positions. Mary has experience in both Wireless and Wireline. She supported the 4G LTE launch in 2010 and is now in the process of rolling out 5G in the South Central markets from Las Vegas to Pensacola, Florida. She is an advocate for the customer experience and committed to closing the digital divide.
Kurtis Lindqvist, London Internet Exchange (LINX)
Kurtis has a broad background in engineering and business development of ISP and worldwide carrier networks. He has spent the past 20 years working actively in the Internet community in several varied roles. Over the years Kurt Erik has participated actively in the development, bastardization and deployment of IPv6 in the IETF and various other operational forums. In addition, he has served as an adviser to the Swedish Minister of Information Technology and Energy cooperating with Anna-Karin Hatt and the Swedish Minister of foreign affairs, Carl Bildt.
Carol Davids, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)
Carol Davids is the Director of the Real-Time Communications (RTC) Lab at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and an Industry Professor of Computer Science at IIT’s School of Applied Technology. She designed and built the RTC Lab and developed the curriculum for the communications courses that use its facilities. She has initiated numerous lab-based projects to develop original real-time communications applications and systems, as well as to study the performance, interoperability and characteristic behaviors of such systems.
Before joining the staff and faculty at IIT, Carol worked in the telecommunications industry for over thirty years, starting in the Bell System and moving into the vendor and standards development communities at Motorola, Tellabs, CableLabs Packet Cable, The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF.) Her standards work includes: IETF drafts RFCs, SIP benchmarking methodology and terminology; Membership in Specialist Task Forces at ETSI for the specification of call signaling and lawful intercept functions on packet-based cable networks; Co-authorship of the PacketCable, CableLabs standards for Voice over IP network elements on cable networks. Carol earned her BS in Engineering Mathematics from Columbia University, School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York, N.Y. and her MS in Information Technology from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL.
Mallik Tatipamula, Ericsson
As a CTO of Ericsson Group Function Technologies and Architectures based in Silicon Valley, Dr Mallik leads evolution of Ericsson’s technology and champion the company’s next phase of innovation and growth. Prior to Ericsson, he held several leadership positions at F5, Juniper, Cisco, Motorola, Nortel and IIT (Chennai). During 30 years of his professional career, he has played a unique leadership role in delivering industry’s most powerful innovations, standards contributions, products/solutions, design implementation of early real-world deployments working with telecom operators, and also innovating for the future, working with academia, by anticipating what might happen next, to accelerate the architectural transitions in the telecom industry. He has identified strategic opportunities, and implemented programs that have brought world-leading innovations to the telecom sector with a multi-billion dollars impact, launching over 50 products/solutions that are deployed in global networks to enable major network transitions from 2G to 5G.
Monica Paolini, PhD, Sanza Fili
Monica Paolini, PhD, is the founder and principal of Senza Fili. She is an expert in wireless technologies and has helped clients worldwide to understand new technologies and customer requirements, create and assess financial models, evaluate business plan opportunities, market their services and products, and estimate the market size and revenue opportunity of new and established wireless technologies. She frequently gives presentations at conferences, and writes reports, blog entries and articles on wireless technologies and services, covering end-to-end mobile networks, the operator, enterprise and IoT markets. She has a PhD in cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego (US), an MBA from the University of Oxford (UK), and a BA/MA in philosophy from the University of Bologna (Italy).
Panels
Kelly Krick, Ericsson
Kelly Krick is Director of Business Development for Mission Critical Networks in North America. He partners with various teams to execute solutions for Public Safety, Peacekeeping and Defense, Utilities and Rail. Mr. Krick has over 40 years of wide-ranging experience from wireline and wireless technologies and from design to operation roles. He has implemented many forms of telecom transformation – digital, wireless (2G through 5G), virtualized, and now cloudified.
A Senior member of IEEE, Kelly is a former Chairman of IEEE ComSoc’s Communications Quality and Reliability Technical Committee and currently serves on the Board of Advisors. Mr. Krick’s career began with Central Telephone Company in the US and subsequently included roles in Northern Telecom (Nortel) and Ericsson in the US, Japan, Singapore, and Sweden. Telecom and travel have been his life-long passions.
Eric Burger, Georgetown University
Dr. Eric Burger is Research Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, recently returning full-time from his IPA detail as the Assistant Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and prior to that, his detail as Chief Technology Officer of the Federal Communications Commission. In short, Dr. Burger has a strong background in business, government, and academia.
Prior to his appointment at Georgetown, he was SVP and CTO of Neustar. Before Neustar, he took a year off to get his Pilot’s License after Oracle bought BEA, where he was hired as VP Engineering and Deputy CTO and ended up Acting General Manager of the Communications Products Division. Prior to BEA, he was CTO of Cantata Technology, where he oversaw corporate research, cross-product architecture, intellectual property generation, and standards initiatives for the company. Dr. Burger contributes to and holds leadership positions in several standards bodies, including having written most of the SIP media RFC’s in the IETF and contributing to VoiceXML and CCXML in the W3C. Dr. Burger co-founded SnowShore Networks, where he invented the SIP-controlled, multi-function media server and served as CTO. He has also held senior positions at companies such as MCI, Texas Instruments, Brooktrout, Centigram, and Cable & Wireless. He holds 19 U.S. patents and has numerous patents pending. He has taught at George Mason University and George Washington University and holds degrees from MIT, Catholic University of Leuven, and Illinois Institute of Technology.
Nicole Turner Lee, Brookings Institute
Dr. Nicol Turner Lee is a senior fellow in Governance Studies, the director of the Center for Technology Innovation, and serves as Co-Editor-In-Chief of TechTank. Dr. Turner Lee researches public policy designed to enable equitable access to technology across the U.S. and to harness its power to create change in communities across the world. Her work also explores global and domestic broadband deployment and internet governance issues. She is an expert on the intersection of race, wealth, and technology within the context of civic engagement, criminal justice, and economic development.
Her current research portfolio also includes artificial intelligence (AI), particularly machine learning algorithms and their unintended consequences on marginalized communities. Her recent co-authored paper on the subject has made her a sought-out speaker in the U.S. and around the world on the topics of digital futures, AI and ethics, algorithmic bias, and the intersection between technology and civil/human rights. She is also an expert on topics that include online privacy, 5G networks and the digital divide. Dr. Turner Lee has a forthcoming book on the U.S. digital divide titled Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New Underclass (forthcoming 2021, Brookings Press). She sits on various U.S. federal agency and civil society boards. Dr. Turner Lee has a Ph.D. and M.A. from Northwestern University and graduated from Colgate University.
Bhushan Joshi, Ericsson
Bhushan Joshi is Head of Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility for Ericsson in Market Area North America. He has over 15 years of professional experience in corporate sustainability, business development, energy management, renewable energy, sustainability reporting, sustainability strategy development and program management. At Ericsson, Bhushan advocates for the role of the Information Communications Technology sector in enabling other industries take exponential climate action. He is also focused on developing strategies to help telecom operators achieve their energy and sustainability goals with the introduction of 5G and growth in mobile data traffic. Bhushan has an MBA in Sustainable Business Practices from Duquesne University, and holds undergraduate degrees from Ferris State University and Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University.