2024 Speakers

Aashu Virmani is a Sales/Marketing and Product Strategy Executive with over 25 years of experience in the Telecom/Wireless industry at Fortune 500 companies and high-tech startups. In a career marked with increasing responsibility and authority, Mr. Virmani managed global product lines, built sales teams and pipelines, developed strategic OEM partnerships, and executed multiple M&A transactions – all in order to accelerate a company’s speed to market.

In his current role at Cambridge Consultants (CC) as SVP of Business Development, he is responsible for finding areas of #deeptech innovation in connectivity and allow CC’s customers to leverage such innovation to create a sustainable moat.

Mr. Virmani has a Ph.D. in database mining from Rutgers, and a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from IIT, Roorkee. He has multiple patents in the area of wireline/wireless networks and has authored numerous papers and articles for peer-reviewed journals and trade publications. He lives in Boston, MA.

Ain McKendrick is the founder and CEO of Faction. He has a track record of developing cutting-edge products and technologies over the course of his career at a number of startups.

Prior to forming Faction, Ain was the VP of Engineering at Starsky Robotics which became the first company to operate completely driverless semi trucks on public roads in North America. He was the Senior Director of Netflix’s partner products team which brought Netflix Instant Streaming to connected consumer products and has co-founded a number of startup technology ventures. Ain began his technology career as one of the founders of Palm Computing developing the original PalmPilot PDA.

Ain holds a degree in Computer Science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, is a Y Combinator alumni, and has a number of patents issued and pending for handheld computing, user interface, DVR, networked storage, and driverless vehicle technologies.

Bill is Managing Director at Voyager Capital, an early stage venture firm with over $525 million under management that is focused on investing in tech opportunities in the Pacific Northwest. He has over 30 years of combined investing and senior executive experience in the information technology industry. At Voyager, he has participated on the boards of 27 companies, including 21 portfolio companies, focusing on cloud, software, digital media and mobile opportunities. Sixteen of his portfolio companies were sold for exits including Amplitude, Attenex, Blue Box Group, Melodeo, NetPodium, Placecast, Rowan TELS, Tegic Communications, Yapta and Zipwhip. Additionally, Bill was a Director for Avocent (NASDAQ: AVCT), a public technology company acquired in late 2009 by Emerson for $1.2 billion. He has been involved in over $4.5 billion in exit transactions, including several IPO’s. He currently serves on the board of Thoughtexchange. He is also a board observer for Ayla and Hiya.

Prior to co-founding Voyager in 1997, Bill was President of e.liance Partners, a consulting firm that advised information technology companies on strategy, venture financing and corporate partnering. He served as Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary of Aldus from 1988 to 1994 when the company’s revenues grew from $30 to $240 million. Bill was responsible for global finance, legal, operations, and acquisition activities, including completing the merger with Adobe in 1994. He also served as a senior executive with Westin Hotels from 1979 to 1987.

Bill has been active in several university organizations, including serving as the past chair and a current member of the Advisory Board for the University of Washington Buerk Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also a founding partner of Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) – Seattle. Bill also serves on the Board of Directors of the Seattle Symphony. Previously Bill was a Cornell University Trustee, and serves on the Advisory Boards for Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Business, the Cornell Hotel School, e.Cornell, and the Center for Entrepreneurship. He has also been active on a number of tech industry boards, including the Washington Technology Industry Association, Washington Technology Association, DEMO, the Canadian Financing Forum and Thayer Ventures.

He earned a B.S. and an M.B.A. from Cornell University.

Brandon Barbello serves as the Chief Operating Officer with a track record of 13+ years as a senior product leader shipping innovative hardware, software, and AI products at Google and various startups. Most recently, he managed privacy-preserving on-device AI projects at Google. Before his time at Google, he founded multiple companies in advanced sensing and fintech.

Brian Shepherd is the President and Chief Executive Officer at CSG and a member of the Board, having been appointed in January 2021. Prior to his role as Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Shepherd served as Executive Vice President and Group President (2017-2021), where he focused on accelerating the growth and strategic development of the company, and Executive Vice President and President of Global Broadband, Cable and Satellite at CSG (2016-2017). Mr. Shepherd received an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated from Wabash College with a BA in Economics.

Caroline Chan is General Manager of 5G Infrastructure Division within Intel’s Network Platform Group. Caroline has overall responsibility for Intel’s global network infrastructure strategy and solution development related to 5th-generation wireless technology. Chan and her team identify and develop use cases that incorporate the Internet of Things, innovation in wireless technologies and deployment models.   

Chan was previously VP and GM of Intel 5G Infrastructure Division and had overall responsibility for Intel’s global network infrastructure strategy and solution development related to 5th-generation wireless technology. Chan and her team identified and developed use cases that incorporate the Internet of Things, innovation in wireless technologies and deployment models, such as mobile edge computing and alternative spectrums that will enable new service providers and enterprise networks.

Since joining Intel in 2009, Chan has worked closely with telecommunications vendors, operators and application developers to advance strategy and marketing in virtual RAN, mini Cloud-RAN and mobile edge computing technologies. Before leading the 5G infrastructure division, she spent six years as director of wireless technology and strategy. In that position, Chan oversaw server CPU extension into Intel’s wireless infrastructure business, a role that encompassed investment strategy, CPU adoption and modification, marketing, and business development.

Before joining Intel, Chan had a 15-year career at Nortel Networks Corp., culminating in her role as director of 4G wireless product management.

She serves as an independent director on EnerSys Inc. (NYSE: ENS) board. In addition, Chan serves on the board of the Telecom Infrastructure Project (TIP) and CBRS Alliance. She is also an advisory board member for Advisory Council for Rural Edge Solutions (ACRES) and 5G Open Innovation (5GOI) Lab. Her contributions in the area of virtualized wireless radio access networks earned Chan an Intel Achievement Award in 2016. Chan was elected to be among the top 25 movers and shakers in the telecom industry 2018 by Fierce Telecom and among the top 5G 100 most influential individuals charting the course for the next generation of global communications in 2020 by Light Reading.

Chan holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, respectively.

Chetan Sharma is the CEO of Chetan Sharma Consulting and is one of the leading strategists in the mobile industry. Executives from wireless companies around the world seek his accurate predictions, independent insights, and actionable recommendations. He has served as an advisor to senior executive management of several Fortune 100 companies in the wireless space and is probably the only industry strategist who has advised each of the top 10 global mobile data operators. Chetan serves on the advisory boards of Ericsson, Telefonica, Kymeta, NextNav, Zeotap, Opanga Networks, A5GNetworks, Lotusflare, and a number of other startups.

Chetan is the author or co-author of over 15 best-selling books on wireless including Mobile Advertising: Supercharge your brand in the exploding wireless market and Wireless Broadband: Conflict and Convergence. He is also the editor of the Mobile Future Forward Book Series. His books have been adopted in several corporate training programs and university courses at NYU, Stanford, and Tokyo University. His research work is widely quoted in the industry. Chetan is interviewed frequently by leading international media publications such as Time magazine, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Japan Media Review, Mobile Communications International, and TechCrunch, and has appeared on NPR, WBBN, and CNBC as a wireless data technology expert. He is also the chief curator of the mobile thought leadership executive forums – Mobile Future Forward and Mobile Breakfast Series.

Chetan is an advisor to CEOs and CTOs of some of the leading wireless technology companies on product strategy and Intellectual Property (IP) development and serves on the advisory boards of several companies. He is also a sought-after IP strategist and expert witness in the wireless industry and has worked on and testified in some of the most landmark cases in the industry such as Qualcomm vs. Broadcom, Samsung vs. Ericsson, Sprint vs. Verizon, Openwave vs. 724 Solutions, and Upaid vs. Satyam. Chetan is a senior member of IEEE, IEEE Communications Society, and IEEE Computers Society. He has Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Kansas State University and Bachelor of Science degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

Ed Volcic is the Chief Technology Officer for KUKA Robotics in North America, where he oversees technology initiatives in KUKA’s core strategic industries. He also leads business development for KUKA’s autonomous mobile robot and advanced welding solutions business units. With 25 years of experience in robotics and automation, Ed has contributed to numerous projects across diverse industries from automotive to general industry, aerospace, and entertainment. Throughout his career at KUKA, Ed has held various roles in Research and Development, Engineering, Project Management, and Business Development. His expertise and innovative approach have earned him patents in robot software technologies. Ed holds a degree in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

As Group CTO, Erik Ekudden is responsible for setting the direction of technology leadership for the Ericsson Group. In 2017 he was re-located to Kista, Sweden, after nearly seven-year at Ericsson in Santa Clara, California.

His experience from working with technology leadership globally will influence the strategic decisions and investments in mobility, distributed cloud, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things. This builds on his decades-long career in technology strategies and industry activities.

Ekudden first joined Ericsson in 1993 working on mobile systems research. He has served as research area director and vice president of standardization. During his career, his team created technology and multimedia functionality that are now used in today’s smartphones worldwide. This team also conducted some of the first work on virtual and augmented reality for mobile systems. He has worked to create global mobile systems for 3G, 4G and 5G in close collaboration with customers.

He holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Ekudden is since 2020, member of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.

Gil Rosen is Chief Marketing Officer at Amdocs, responsible for managing its global brand, product marketing and customer marketing. In this role, he leads development of Amdocs’ vision, delivery of strategic research insights to customers, as well as the company’s overall go-to-market activities. Gil heads a team of global marketing professionals and is a member of the company’s executive management team.

Prior to assuming the CMO role, Gil was Division President of amdocs:next, responsible for cultivating and incubating future growth engines and disruptive technologies, including IoT and the AI-powered home broadband experience.

Before joining Amdocs in 2018, Gil served as the Chief Marketing & Innovation officer at Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecommunications provider. He significantly accelerated Bezeq’s drive towards digitization and market leadership in the broadband domain, turning around a declining business in a very competitive market, and leading with prizewinning product launches and advertising campaigns. In 2016 when IoT was still in its early phases, Gil led Bezeq’s “Smart Strategy”, including Smart City, Smart Business and Smart Home offerings, and captured market leadership in this domain. Before Bezeq, Gil was Vice President, New Media at Deutsche Telekom, responsible for the development of the cloud set-top-box concept, the Tolino Tab – an award-winning competitor to Amazon Kindle. In his last role at Deutsche Telekom, Gil spun off its first fully digitized cloudbased communication provider, IMMMR and served as the company’s founder and general manager.

In a previous tenure at Amdocs, Gil was VP Innovation & Digital Services and the founder and head of the AT&T Innovation Center (Foundry) in Israel. In this role, Gil was responsible for the setup of a new innovation center and the creation of a hybrid R&D and partnership model that led to the launch of successful innovation projects for AT&T.

Gil holds a BA in business administration from Reichman University, Israel.

Ina is the chief technology correspondent at Axios. She authors the daily Axios AI+ newsletter and brings years of Silicon Valley experience to offer a smart take on tech.

Jennifer Byrne is a General Partner at Grit Capital Partners, investing in companies in Fintech, Commerce, and Media. Jennifer has been an executive, venture investor, board advisor, and ecosystem builder in the media, telecom and financial services sectors for the past 20 years.

Jenn co-founded Quesnay, a strategy and innovation advisory firm that delivered custom global startup accelerators with Fortune 50 companies in Financial Services, Technology and Media. Jenn also launched the world’s first accelerator to source and support women-led fintech companies while facilitating mutually beneficial startup-corporate-investor relationships. Over 500 women-led startups have applied and been evaluated by 500+ industry leaders and investors, raising over $1.8B.

Before founding Quesnay, Jenn served as VP, Business Development at American Express launching a digital payment service with global partners. At Verizon, Jenn was Executive Director, Business Development & Partnerships where she was responsible for a $1Bn+ mobile applications & services P&L. She spearheaded Verizon’s innovation division, led 4G services launch, identified investment opportunities, and established industry-first mobile partnerships with Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Jenn is a thought leader in fintech, and was named to the “Innovate Finance Powerlist” in 2020, 2019, and 2018 (as well as ”Standout 35″), 2020 “NYC Inspiring FinTech Females,” and 2021 “Female Founders Alliance Champions,” and has been featured on the cover of AM Best, as well as in American Banker, Nasdaq Tradetalks, FNO Insurtech podcast, Insurtech Connect, among others.

Jenn is based in Santa Monica and New York and serves as Co-founder of The Female Funders’ Club, the Duke University SoCal Career Chairwoman, and mentor at TechStars. Jenn is a graduate of Duke University and speaks Spanish, Italian, and French.

Joe Constantine is the Chief Strategy and Technology Officer for Ericsson in North America. He is responsible for leading the company’s key strategic technology decisions, focusing on new technology trends and business intelligence to drive business growth and successful execution with customers throughout the United States and Canada.

Initially joining Ericsson in 2000, Constantine has held a variety of senior leadership positions in sales, operations, and technology across four continents for the company. Constantine is a seasoned global telecom executive with a strong business and technical background. He believes that a connected world is a basic human right and is committed to helping create a sustainable future.

Constantine also spent three years at JMA Wireless (2021-2024), serving as Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, and Head of Global Services.
Constantine taught at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, from which he holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering.

Kamal Sadarangani is the Vice President and Head of Telecommunications for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games. With over two and a half decades of experience in the telecommunications industry, Kamal is known for his strategic vision and leadership. At LA28, he is responsible for developing and executing the telecommunications strategy, ensuring seamless communication infrastructure for one of the world’s largest sporting events.

Throughout his career, Kamal has held various senior leadership positions, where he managed extensive engineering and operations teams, launched new networks, and optimized existing ones. His expertise extends beyond corporate roles to include consulting, where he has provided industry-leading services in strategic planning, technical due diligence, market analysis, business plan development, and program management.

Kamal’s comprehensive understanding of both technical and operational aspects of telecommunications has made him a sought-after leader in the industry. He is known for his collaborative approach and ability to drive innovation, ensuring cost-effective, high-quality delivery of services. His work has not only impacted current operational standards but also paved the way for future advancements in the field.

Kevin Kane is the CEO and Co-Founder of American Binary, where he has led the company in securing equity financing and launching post-quantum encrypted cybersecurity products since March 2019. Under his leadership, American Binary has supported real-world defense of networks in international conflict zones and corporate networks. Most recently, American Binary was listed in Booz Allen Hamilton’s 2024 report “Top 10 Emerging Technologies for the DoD and National Security.”

Previously, Kevin founded, team scaled, and operated the Machine Learning/AI Trading Desk at Rotella Capital Management following the acquisition of his company, Claro Automata, a Large Language Model (LLM)-focused semantic analytics AI company. He also founded an AI-driven hedge fund manager with $39 million in assets under management. At Taurus Investment & Securities, Kevin built a high-frequency trading desk for KOSPI 200 Futures using AI models.

Kevin holds a Master’s degree in International Economics and IR Theory from Seoul National University and has experience in the US Army as a Non-Commissioned Officer. His career spans diverse roles in energy economics, quantitative finance, portfolio management, national security, and emerging technologies.

The newest General Partner of Boulder Ventures, Kishen Mangat joined in 2022 with 25 years’ operating experience as a founder and executive in startup and corporate environments.

From 2013 to 2022, Kishen was VP/GM at Cisco Systems, where he was responsible for the Mobility, Automation, Internet-of-Things and Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) business units. He led multiple technology and business model transitions at scale and was responsible for developing and deploying the world’s first nationwide production 5G core network.

Prior to Cisco, Kishen was Founder of BroadHop, Inc. where he and his co-founders were responsible for pioneering dynamic service control in mobile networks and introduced the industry’s first virtualized real time policy controller. Kishen was responsible for building out BroadHop’s global go-to-market and field sales and support operations, while directly engaging with dozens of tier-1 mobile operators. In 2013, BroadHop was acquired by Cisco Systems.

Prior to BroadHop, Kishen founded and was CEO of Amigo Systems (sold to POST). He was also co-founder of STS Hotel Net (sold to CAIS Internet, a KKR Company).

Kishen received his B.A. in Economics from Colorado College, where he previously served as a Trustee. Kishen is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Access Fund, the national organization responsible for ensuring sustainable access and conservation of climbing resources.

Kishen is an active climber and alpinist, having logged notable ascents across the globe over the past 30 years.

Michael Cornwell serves as the Field CTO of the Americas at Pure Storage. He is a Founding
Engineer of the company and has served in key management roles in the company’s growth.
Previously at Microsoft as the general manager of storage technologies for Azure Infrastructure
and led the innovation and adoption of new memory and storage technologies across the Azure
platform and services. He also led pioneering storage product development at Sun
Microsystems and Apple, where he was instrumental in adopting new technologies in Apple
products. Michael holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of
California at Santa Cruz and has been awarded 68 U.S. patents.

Nishant is a global leader with broad experience in strategy and technology development and portfolio management, as well as in having significant profit and loss responsibilities across the telecom and enterprise sectors. He has been intimately involved in bringing cutting-edge products to market across industry domains and has a deep understanding of the silicon, software and system requirements necessary for innovation.

At Nokia, Nishant is the Chief Strategy and Technology Officer (CSTO) with responsibility for corporate strategy, technology architecture and pioneering research at Nokia Bell Labs; Nokia’s information technology (IT) infrastructure and digitalization initiatives; centralized security domains; and Nokia’s venture capital activities.

His function lays the path for Nokia’s future technology innovation and identifies the most promising areas in which Nokia can create new value. By setting the company’s vision and understanding the evolving market and business dynamics, Nishant is responsible for developing a coherent business-strategy, technology and architecture vision across the company and implementing it in partnership with the Nokia Business Groups. Furthermore, he is responsible for establishing a solid research foundation on which Nokia innovates new products and for providing the critical support infrastructure that ensures all Nokia business units can deliver that vision properly and securely.

Prior to joining Nokia in 2021, Nishant worked at Veoneer in Sweden, a worldwide leader in automotive technology, where he was Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Before this, he spent 12 years at Ericsson holding several positions, most recently as Head of Product Area Networks.

Nishant holds an MBA from INSEAD; a master’s degree in Telecommunications and a master’s degree in Computer Science from Southern Methodist University in the US; and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Applications from Devi Ahilya University in India.

Nishant is based in Sunnyvale, California and has lived and worked in Asia, Europe and the US.

Omer is an IDF special forces veteran turned entrepreneur. He is the founder and seven years CEO of Eviation Aircraft, maker of the Alice, the world’s first all-electric commuter plane. Omer has deep knowledge of physics and is the inaugural recipient of the SAE sustainable aviation award.

Pete Bremer, Vice President of Global Automation Engineering with Assurant, is guiding the strategy, development, build and implementation of emerging and proven automation technologies at Assurant’s Device Care Centers, which repair and refurbish a range of connected devices. From upskilling, data security, better customer experience, trade-in value retention, and the device processing cycle, he’s using modular automation across multiple processes. Pete has a unique and diverse background starting with years in the field as an electromechanical technician in the robotics and CNC machining arena. As his career grew, Pete moved into development in the robotics space and the interlink between what should and can be done practically in the automation space to drive supply chain resiliency and efficiency. His previous experience includes directly managing multiple projects for Tesla, stints at Kuka Robotics, Vicarious AI, and Calvary Robotics.

Beginning April 1, 2024, Rachel Kutz assumes leadership of AT&T’s Sales and Distribution teams in the Northwest Market which includes 11 mainland states, as well as Hawaii and Alaska. In this role, she will focus on energizing a team of over one thousand employees dedicated to delivering America’s best converged connectivity through best-in-class customer service and retail excellence.

Before this role, Rachel led the consumer product supply chain operations for AT&T Mobility, Broadband, and Business where she led a diverse team of over a thousand employees dedicated to better serving customers through operations coupled with an unbridled passion to deliver world-class customer service with retail excellence. This included ownership of all AT&T’s sourcing, logistics, supplier quality control, planning, purchasing and fulfillment of consumer and business products and equipment, as well as Supplier Diversity & Sustainability initiatives.

Rachel is an inclusive thought leader who develops inventive solutions requiring high emotional intelligence, deep expertise in analytics, and managerial courage to drive complex issue resolution in highly competitive environments. She has extensive supply chain leadership experience and has led multiple data analytics and automation initiatives including overall supply chain transformation strategy for purchasing operations, systems, and tools to improve efficiency of internal processes. In addition, Rachel is passionate about mentoring, diversity and inclusion, respect, equality, social responsibility and helping others exceed their goals. She takes pride in providing leadership for AT&T’s $13B Supplier Diversity and Supplier Sustainability transformation programs which has resulted in national program recognition. Personally, she has been recognized with a President’s Volunteer Service Award (PVSA) for the hundreds of hours she spends participating in diversity related events and with diverse organizations. She previously served on the Dallas – Fort Worth Minority Supplier Development Council (DFW MSDC) and currently serves on the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) national board.

She began her career at AT&T supporting wireless network radio frequency (RF) performance and rapidly rose to leading market network teams. With her thoughts always on the customer experience, she enabled local sales teams to market products and reduce customer churn more effectively.

Rob is responsible for all aspects of AT&T’s RAN architecture and infrastructure technical road maps for hardware and software, including baseband units, radios, antennas and all ancillary components. In addition, his team oversees certification and development for RAN hardware, software and features. This team drives our strategy and contributions to global standards and to technical industry and government organizations.

Prior to joining AT&T, he led RAN architecture at VMware, overseeing their cloud platform infrastructure technology, including product definition and portfolio strategy. Rob also held technical roles with Nokia Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, and Lucent driving architecture, innovation and strategy for their entire wireless portfolio with a more recent particular focus on cloud RAN and 5G.

Through his many key roles on the product side driving cellular infrastructure, Rob has driven large teams and small teams to provide innovative solutions that have reached significant market penetration across 3G, 4G, and 5G networks in several large wireless operators around the world. He has supported and developed technologies that significantly improved performance, increased resiliency, significantly decreased power consumption and reduced total cost of ownership.

Rob holds a doctorate and master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s in science in electrical engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

Ryan Stone is a serial entrepreneur and was most recently at SmartSky Networks until August, 2024, where he was the President, initial CEO (2011-2013), and a co-founder. He oversaw the Company’s sales and marketing to the aviation industry’s business and commercial aviation sectors, as well as its digital solutions offerings, product roadmap, patent portfolio, and international development. Ryan began his career as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, then joined Duke Energy’s Nuclear Generation Department where he held various engineering and leadership roles. Next, he co-founded and served as CEO and then Chairman of Davinci Jets, a leading private aviation management and charter firm, which was the springboard for creating SmartSky in 2011. Ryan earned an MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan Flagler Business School, a BS in Systems Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, and holds 13 patents related to aviation telecommunications.

Sameer Vuyyuru is currently the Head of WW Business Development for Communication Service Providers at Amazon Web Services (AWS). His team works with all of the leading players in the Telco ecosystem in the co-pursuit of transforming the way networks and network services are built and monetized in the future.

Sameer is a Customer Obsessed veteran of the Telecommunications Industry. He prides him on delivering Value through Innovation to the Telecommunications Ecosystem Worldwide. Sameer was most recently the Co-Founder and CEO of Wayz.ai, a Shanghai based AI start-up delivering Predictive Network Services for Self-Organizing Networks. Prior accomplishments in the Telco space include helping launch the first ever 40G and 100G optical transport networks, LoRa (The largest IoT Network as a Service) and numerous other innovations starting from GPRS baseband and driving through the generational upgrades all the way to 5G.

His past roles include SVP/GM at Comtech where he ran the E-911 and Messaging Product lines. His team expanded the market to 86 different Telcos WW through innovating on Network Function virtualization, on AWS for ease of deployment and agility. Prior to that he was SVP/GM at Semtech for the Advanced Communications group. Sameer started his career with Texas Instruments working on system level solutions for 2G Baseband in their Mobile Computing Architecture Labs. Sameer holds an MSEE in Digital Signal Processing from Texas Tech University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

Before co-founding Touring, Samir was a Managing Partner at M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), where he led investment activities in horizontal / vertical AI, deep tech, and hardware-enabled software companies. Samir’s notable investments include Applied Intuition, Psi Quantum, Wandelbots, Syntiant, D-Matrix, Regrow, and Netradyne. Samir previously held senior product and strategic business development roles at Qualcomm, Samsung, and Microsoft. He developed a strong passion for AI after delving deep into neural networks a decade ago; this ultimately paved his path to becoming a venture investor. Samir is a graduate of Cornell University.

Born in New Delhi and raised in New York, Samir has been inspired throughout his life by the future envisioned in Star Trek. This has been a driving force in shaping his technologist perspective throughout his career, both as an operator and a venture capitalist. At Touring, Samir is excited to partner with entrepreneurs building companies with a strong technical vision and potential to reshape our future.

When not with founders or reading up on the latest research trends in AI and the sciences, Samir enjoys his deep love for electronic music, which he can already see is shared by his 17-month-old daughter! Samir also dabbles in flight simulation and amateur astronomy.

Scott Lawrence is Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer for Verizon Business. He is responsible for Verizon Business’ holistic product portfolio and strategy, including Network Services, Platforms, Cyber Security, Connected Experiences, FWA and IoT Solutions. In this role, he oversees a global team that develops a clear and compelling vision for product-led growth across all of Verizon Business’ customers.

In his previous role with the Global Solutions organization, he was accountable for delivering strategic and innovative business solutions to Enterprise and Public Sector clients around the globe. He supported a revenue base of $15B+ and led a team of over 1,000 Sales and Technology professionals globally focused on delivering business outcomes to clients through Verizon’s best-in-class global solutions such as 5G, Edge Computing, Software-Defined Services, Cyber Security and Connected Experiences.

Before that, Scott was Group Vice President and General Manager, Global Enterprise, where he had P&L responsibility for Verizon Business’ International segment across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Focused on delivering an exceptional customer experience for Verizon Business’ Global Enterprise clients across a full spectrum of the Verizon Business portfolio. Prior to his international assignment, Scott was Vice President, Verizon Business’ Advanced Solutions Sales & Engineering where he was responsible for an organization of Sales Specialists and Solution Architects across three solution practice towers: Cyber Security, Workplace Collaboration (Unified Communications & Collaboration) and Customer Experience (CX) supporting Global Enterprise and Public Sector customers.

In addition, Scott has held various senior leadership roles across Verizon’s Sales, Operations, Strategy and System Integrators teams. Prior to rejoining Verizon in 2004, Scott held Sales leadership and Business Development roles at Allied Riser Communications and OpenReach.

Scott holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin and currently lives in Chicago, IL with his wife and three children where he is active in his community and coaching youth sports.

Steve is the founder of innov8.ag, a Walla Walla Washington-based agtech startup and Microsoft-partnered company. Prior to embarking on the startup, Steve spent 12 years at Microsoft where he most recently focused on Microsoft’s fastest growing product line, Azure Cloud. His leadership skills contributed to growing Azure from a $100M to a $10B+/year business over 6 years. After his time spent at the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle, Steve decided to relocate his family of four to Walla Walla, Washington, in the summer of 2018. He envisions this location as the perfect base for ag startups given the convergence of progressive farmers and three colleges with strengths in agriculture, engineering, science, established ag manufacturers, strong connectivity providers, and a highly collaborative business climate. An Australian by birth, Steve has his MBA from the University of Washington.

Ulf Ewaldsson is T-Mobile’s president of technology and is responsible for the management and development of T-Mobile’s wireless network, the company’s information technology services, and technology operations.

Previously, Ulf served as executive vice president & chief network officer at T-Mobile during which he managed a nationwide team that builds, operates and maintains T-Mobile’s network, with the goal of providing an outstanding customer experience.

Ulf joined T-Mobile in 2019 to lead and transform T-Mobile’s 5G network deployment. He previously had several leadership positions at Ericsson, including chief technology officer, chief strategy officer, head of radio business and head of business area digital services.

In the wireless industry, Ulf is known for his passion and track record for driving innovation, operations and execution. He has been instrumental in helping to create some of the most innovative mobile communication products, such as multi-standard RBS, antenna-integrated radio units, femto base stations and NBIoT.

Ulf has garnered global recognition for launching concepts like Service Provider SDN and “50 bn Connected Devices by 2020.” He has also been credited as a founder of 5G mobile technology. In 2014, Global Telecoms Business magazine named Ulf among the top 50 most powerful people in the global telecom business.

Ulf earned a Master of Science and a Master of Business Management from Linköping Technical University. He also attended executive training at Columbia University in New York. And he has served on several boards of directors, including ASSA-ABLOY AB, Telecom Management Forum and Corporate Fiber AB. He is currently chairman of the board of the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and is a member of the board of trustees of the National Nordic Museum in Seattle.

Ulf and his family relocated from Sweden to T-Mobile’s hometown headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. Outside the office, the Pacific Northwest offers the perfect backdrop for some of Ulf’s personal passions — playing tennis, hiking and oil painting.

Upal has worked in the mobile and software technology industry for over 20 years. At NGP Capital, Upal leads the US investment team.

Prior to NGP Capital, he was Founder and CEO of Mformation Technologies, the world’s largest mobile device management company, which was acquired by Alcatel-Lucent. Previously he was a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in New York and London. Prior to joining McKinsey, Upal led Product Management activities for Risk Management Solutions (RMS), a leading provider of software technologies for the management of insurance risks.

Upal has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS in Engineering from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Imperial College, London.

Youngmok “Mok” Yun is CEO/Founder of Contoro Robotics. Mok focuses on augmenting robot intelligence through teleoperation. With a rich history in the field, including pivotal roles such as CEO, CTO, and Board Member at Harmonic Bionics, Inc., and Co-founder and Board Member of H Robotics, Mok has been instrumental in advancing robotic technologies in the human-robot-interface sectors. Mok is holding a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, and his PhD was supported by NSF, NASA, UT Austin Fellowship, and Korean Government. He has been also the PIs of two NSF projects.