2019 Speakers

Andrea Little Limbago is the Chief Social Scientist at Virtru.  Her writing has been featured in numerous outlets, including Politico, the Hill, Business Insider, and Christian Science Monitor. She also presents at a range of security, government, and academic conferences, covering cybersecurity topics ranging from norms to bots to attack trends. She previously worked in academia and at the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC). While at JWAC, Andrea received the Reginald Gray Award, the Command’s top award for technical excellence for her analytic support across the Department of Defense. Andrea holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she taught international relations and foreign policy courses, and a Bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College.

As Corporate Vice President of the Cybersecurity Solutions Group at Microsoft, Ann Johnson oversees the go-to-market strategies of cybersecurity and compliance solutions for one of the largest tech companies on our planet.

As a recognized thought leader on cybersecurity, Johnson is a sought-after global speaker and digital author specializing in cyber resilience, online fraud, cyberattacks, compliance and mobile security.

Prior to joining Microsoft, her executive leadership roles included CEO of Boundless Spatial, President and COO of vulnerability management pioneer Qualys, Inc. and Vice President of World Wide Identity and Fraud Sales at RSA Security, a subsidiary of EMC Corporation. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Weber State University with a dual major in political science and communication. She has completed the majority of the required coursework toward her MBA with a concentration in statistics.

Dedicated to giving back to her community, Johnson currently serves on the boards and as a board advisor of the Security Advisor Alliance, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), Executive Women’s Forum, HYPR (a biometric security firm) as well as the Executive Sponsor of the Microsoft Women in Security Group and co-executive sponsor of Microsoft GLEAM. In addition, Johnson dedicates her philanthropy – in terms of time and fundraising – to animal and youth causes.

As President and CEO, Biju Nair is responsible for the execution and strategy of HYLA’s global business. He leads the company’s expanding effort to grow the company’s global strategic vision, with a focus on bringing new technology solutions and new business opportunities to the forefront. He is responsible for all aspects of ensuring the company’s short and long-term goals are realized and that the corporate strategy is secure and engaged.

Bringing more than 20 years of experience to his role, Biju is a recognized entrepreneur and technology industry leader. Most recently, he served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer for Synchronoss, where he was responsible for leading the technology direction and strategic vision of the company as well as investor relations.

Prior to joining Synchronoss, Biju was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sapience Knowledge Systems, Inc., a venture-backed wireless software company that was acquired by Synchronoss Technologies in 2011. Previously, he held the position of Senior Vice President and GM of the Connectivity and Security Group at Smith Micro Software and Corporate Vice President and GM and founder of Mobility Solutions Group at PCTEL, Inc. which was acquired by Smith Micro in 2008. In addition, Biju has held senior executive positions at SAFCO Technologies and Agilent Technologies.

Biju has a Master of Science Degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering from Politechnika Warszawska and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology.

William (Bill) Diotte is a technology entrepreneur, CEO and Board Member with more than 20 years of experience in working with tech-driven companies from startup stage to Fortune 500.

Prior to joining Mocana as Chief Executive, he was the co-founder and CEO of software defined networking pioneer BroadHop Inc., acquired by Cisco.  Starting off his career as a manufacturing engineer, he became an executive and managing director with both Gemini and SRI Consulting serving high tech companies in the software and telecom markets.  Bill has also served as a Board Member to LiveAction, Inc., and is an investor and advisor to several companies in the software infrastructure and security space.

In addition to his passion for winter sports, his favorite business hobby is working with young and scaling companies that are set on disrupting or creating new markets.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Queen’s University in Kingston, a MBA from the Ivey School at the University of Western Ontario and is an alumnus of the International Business Program at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Chetan Sharma is CEO and founder 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 executives of several Fortune 100 companies in the wireless space and is probably the only industry strategist who has advised each of the top 6 global mobile data operators. Chetan is the author or co-author or editor of 12 best-selling books on mobile and over 200 articles related to mobile. He has been serving on the advisory boards of Telefonica, Ericsson, Kymeta and other stealth startups.

In addition to serving as a founding advisor of San Francisco’s Self Racing Cars Series, Chris is a die-hard gearhead with a passion for motorsports, engineering and technology. He was previously the Director of Product Management at LightSurf—pioneer of the camera phone—before the company was acquired by Verisign. Heiser graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

Chris Penrose is president of AT&T’s internet of things (IoT) organization. Chris is responsible for leading AT&T’s global internet of things initiatives across industry verticals. This includes auto, agriculture, manufacturing, fleet management, asset tracking, healthcare, drones, energy, smart cities, retail and consumer electronics.

From connected cars to connected cities, Chris has led AT&T to become recognized as one of the leading IoT companies in the world. Chris has also been recognized for championing innovation. He spearheaded the creation of the AT&T Drive Studio for connected vehicles, the AT&T Healthcare Foundry and the AT&T IoT Foundry, all which focus on making it easy for developers and businesses to create and implement IoT solutions.

With 27 years of experience at AT&T and its predecessor companies, Chris has leadership expertise in strategic planning, business development, sales, marketing, distribution planning and customer service.He holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University. Chris and his wife Anne live in Atlanta and have two children in college.

Dana is COO of Measurabl, an enterprise software company that makes it
possible for any company to collect, report, and act on sustainability data,
powering the global market in non-financial information.

Before Measurabl Dana spent three years with Goby, a tech enabled
sustainability consultancy, where she built and managed a 20-person Data
Services and Benchmarking team and a 4-person Customer Success team.
Before Goby Dana spent four years with Aramark, a Fortune 200 food, facility,
and uniform company, in various roles supporting the implementation,
measurement, and management of sustainability programs. Dana served
in various leadership roles at Aramark including Chair for Aramark’s Young
Professional Resource Group.

Dana has expertise in sustainability reporting, corporate sustainability strategy, environmental compliance, sustainability implementation, data management, and green building.

Mr. David C. King is the CEO and a co-founder of FogHorn Systems, the pioneer and global leader in edge intelligence software for Industrial IoT. Prior to joining FogHorn in 2015, Mr. King co-founded and was Chairman, President & CEO of AirTight Networks (renamed Mojo Networks) from 2004-2015, a leading innovator in secure cloud-managed Wi-Fi technology, which was acquired in 2018 by Arista Networks, the leader in software-driven, cognitive cloud computing solutions. Prior to AirTight, Mr. King served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Proxim, a pioneer in WLANs and the first publicly traded Wi-Fi company, from 1993-2002. Mr. King led Proxim through a successful IPO in December 1993 and 30x revenue growth as a public company during his tenure as CEO.

Before Proxim, Mr. King served as Vice President of Marketing and Customer
Service for Vitalink Communications, an early leader in wide area networking
from1990 to 1992. Prior to Vitalink, Mr. King was a senior manager and a thought leader in both the high technology and healthcare practices of McKinsey & Company from 1985 to 1990. In addition to his board positions at FogHorn, AirTight and Proxim, Mr. King served on the boards of Netopia, Inc., Cayman Systems and Mobilestar Inc., all pioneering companies in the broadband access and networking industries. Mr. King holds an A.B. in Economics, as well as M.B.A. and J.D. degrees, all from Harvard University.

Dina Bass is the Seattle Bureau Chief at Bloomberg. She has been a technology reporter for Bloomberg News, covering Microsoft since 1999. Dina also writes about storage, cloud, artificial intelligence and Seattle startups for Bloomberg, as well as authoring articles for Bloomberg Businessweek.

Durga Malladi is Senior Vice President and General Manager, 4G/5G in Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. Durga joined Qualcomm in 1998 as a Senior Engineer. Over the past 20 years, he has worked on 3G and 4G technologies, and was the Project Engineer of 4G LTE-Advanced in Qualcomm Research from 2008-15, responsible for features such as mobile broadband, Carrier Aggregation, HetNets, Relays, Dual Connectivity, Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), Internet of Things (eMTC, NB-IoT) and Cellular V2X.

From 2015-18, he oversaw the 5G and Wi-Fi Wireless R&D projects, spanning Sub6 and Millimeter Wave bands, with applications in enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Integrated Access and Backhaul systems, Unlicensed / Shared Spectrum Access, Massive IoT (mIoT), Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), Industrial IoT, 5G based Vehicular Communications (C-V2X) and evolution of Wi-Fi beyond 802.11ax. The responsibilities spanned system design, standardization, prototype testbeds, pre-commercial vendor inter-operability tests and trials.

As SVP & GM 4G/5G, he is responsible for cellular modem and location businesses, baseband and transceiver modem technology roadmap, features, software products, and infrastructure and operator commercial engagements. He drives the overall 5G roadmap and solutions across business units, spanning Mobile, Industrial, Enterprise and Automotive segments. He is the recipient of Qualcomm’s IP Excellence Award, Qualcomm Distinguished Contributor Award for Project Leadership and Upendra Patel Achievement Awards for Outstanding Contributions to HSPA and LTE.

Durga holds a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and an M.S and Ph.D. from UCLA. His research interests include Signal Processing, Communication Theory and Artificial Intelligence. He is a member of IEEE and holds 440 U.S. patents.

Eugene Chung is CEO and Founder of Penrose Studios. Previously, he was Director, Film & Media at Oculus VR. Prior to that, he was an investor and filmmaker based in New York City. He was with TechStars and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), where he focused on venture capital and seed investments in technology companies. Prior to NEA, Eugene worked in film production at Pixar Animation Studios. Earlier in his career, Eugene was a private equity investor at Warburg Pincus and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He earned his BS degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.

Dr. Ganesh Sundaram is founder and CEO of AlefEdge and is a leader in wireless technology with over 20 years of rich experience in technology creation and has worked extensively with operators globally. Prior to founding the Company, he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and lead multiple secure wireless solutions initiatives at Bell Labs, New Jersey. He has developed several foundational technologies, leading to new standards, products and deployments, and has authored over 50 patents relating to mobile data networking, architecture, security, cryptography, resource management and mobility management. He was named a Bell Labs Fellow in 2012, inducted into the Alcatel-Lucent technical academy 2009, and is a recipient of two Bell Labs president’s awards. Dr. Sundaram has PhD in Mathematics from Purdue University and Master of Science degrees in Applied Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University.

Glenn Lurie serves as President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Synchronoss Technologies. Glenn joined the Synchronoss team in November, 2017 with nearly 30 years’ experience in the telecommunications and wireless industries.

Prior to joining Synchronoss, Glenn was President and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T’s Mobility and Consumer Operations where he successfully grew the nation’s leading wireless and consumer business. During this time Glenn managed sales and distribution, customer care, operations, home entertainment and video services. Glenn and his team were also responsible for the integration of AT&T’s Direct TV and the company’s digital business.
After starting his career in the early days of the wireless industry at McCaw Cellular, Glenn helped usher in the modern smartphone era by leading AT&T’s negotiations with Apple to introduce the first iPhone and iPad. He built three groundbreaking business for AT&T: IoT business – bringing wireless connectivity to tablets, cars and consumer electronics; Digital Life – AT&T’s home automation and security business, and finally the launch of Aio Wireless – now Cricket Wireless, the companies’ industry leading prepaid flanker brand.
In 2014, Glenn was named as one of just 10 “MobileGameChangers” by Russell Reynolds Associates for his mobile-first approach to developing innovative services that enhance the way people live. Glenn was named to the Global Telecom Business “Power 100” multiple times, awarded Wireless Week’s Telecom Leadership Award in 2010, and presented the Atlanta Telecom Professional of the Year Award in 2009 from the Atlanta Telecoms Professionals Association.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business/Marketing from Seattle Pacific University. An avid soccer player, Glenn was a three-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) National Champion at Seattle Pacific University. He was also a 1st Round Draft pick in the Major Indoor Soccer League and went on to play professionally for teams in Cleveland, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Portland.

Hank is President of Connected Solutions at Aptiv, a leading technology company in the automotive space. Mr. Skorny has extensive experience in the mobile software and services industry as well as in PC software for 30 years. Prior to joining Aptiv, Mr. Skorny served as SVP – IoT at Neustar and the VP of Software & Services Group and GM of the Intel Services Division at Intel Corporation. Prior to that he was Chief Strategy Officer and SVP of RealNetworks, Inc., and President CEO of mobile messaging startup, Thumbspeed,Inc. Earlier in his career, Mr. Skorny was executive at AOL, Adobe Systems, Microsoft and Apple Computer.

An inventor and technology visionary, Dr. Moiin is  Chief Product and Strategy Officer of Engineered Fluids. He is also a director of several innovative companies and an advisor to venture funds and large corporations active in the various areas of technology. Hossein has held leadership positions in large organizations such as Nokia, BT, T-Mobile and Sun Microsystems over the  past 25 years and has an in-depth understanding of technology while remaining focused on making the world a better place through communication.

Ina Fried is a Chief Technology Correspondent, where she covers a wide range of technology issues. Before helping launch Recode, Ina covered mobile at All Things Digital where she also co-produced the D: Dive Into Mobile conference. She spent a decade at CNET where she covered, among other things, Microsoft and Apple. Prior to joining CNET in May 2000, she covered chips for Bridge News and was a writer at the Orange County Business Journal and Orange County Register. She graduated from Miami University in Ohio.

Jay Green is a reporter focused on technology coverage in the Pacific Northwest. He has BA in English from Macalester College and MS in Journalism from Columbia University. Before joining The Post, Greene was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, covering Microsoft and the cloud-computing businesses of Amazon and Google. He spent 10 years as the Seattle bureau chief for BusinessWeek and has covered Amazon and Microsoft for the Seattle Times. He also wrote “Design Is How It Works,” a book on design and innovation. His Honors & Awards include, McGraw Fellowship at City University of New York, Graduate School of Journalism; US-Japan Journalism Fellow at Japan Center for International Exchange; Immigration Journalism Fellowship at French-American Foundation, and Best in Business Award for Explanatory Journalism from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Jeff Bradley is currently an advisor to early stage and mature companies on product roadmap and go to market strategy.

Jeff ended his tenure at AT&T with responsibility for west retail sales and distribution. Prior he was responsible for the industry’s leading portfolio of mobile devices during its meteoric evolution; AT&T’s network product services including NumberSync, Call Protect, and Advanced Messaging; and providing mobile developers and creators with tools, events, and best practices. He joined AT&T Wireless from Lante Corporation, a leading internet consulting firm, where he was Managing Director and a member of the senior leadership team. Jeff began his career at IBM initially in enterprise sales and then in consulting practice management. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Stanford University where he was also a two-time Pac 10 champion wrestler.

Jeff is a Vice President HPE-Aruba and leads Strategy, Corporate Development, and Business Development. Recently, he led corporate initiatives around 5G, IoT, and security. Prior to Aruba, Jeff was a partner at Ericsson Ventures, where he covered networking, security, and IoT. Jeff also was VP of Corporate Development at Juniper Networks, where he launched and led Juniper’s venture investment program and focused on thematic investments in the cloud, networking, and security markets. His investments included Nicira (acquired by VMWare), Cotendo (acquired by Akamai), Sentrigo (acquired by McAfee), Contrail (acquired by Juniper), and FireEye (NASDAQ: FEYE). Before Juniper, Jeff was an equity research analyst at JPMorgan (and predecessor company Hambrecht & Quist), where he led the communications equipment and semiconductor teams. Early in his career, Jeff was a research engineer at Bellcore. He earned Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University and an MBA from UCLA.

John Baker is the Senior Vice President of Business Development at Mavenir. A veteran of the mobile industry, board member for 5G Americas, and sought-after industry speaker, John Baker leads the 5G team at Mavenir, intent on disrupting the market by transforming operator network economics.

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

Prior to joining Mavenir, John held senior positions with leading wireless companies, including:

• 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

John also contributed significantly in the development of the GSM standards. He graduated with an Honors Degree in Electrical Electronic Engineering from Loughborough University in Leicestershire, UK. John is frequently quoted in major wireless industry publications including Wireless Week, Fierce Wireless, Light Reading, SDX Central, RCR Wireless and Mobile World Live.

John Saw, Ph.D., is chief technology officer at Sprint, responsible for technology development, network planning, engineering, deployment and service assurance of the Sprint network. Prior to this he was chief network officer.

Saw has more than 20 years of wireless industry experience. Before Sprint’s acquisition of Clearwire, he was CTO of Clearwire Corp. He joined Clearwire as its second employee in 2003 and was instrumental in scaling the company’s technical expertise and organization. In 2009 and 2010, he led the Clearwire team that built the first 4G network in North America, covering more than 130 million people.

Before Clearwire, Saw was senior vice president and general manager of Fixed Wireless Access at Netro Corp. (now SR Telecom) after Netro’s acquisition of AT&T Wireless’ broadband wireless group in 2002. He initiated the rollout of Netro’s broadband wireless products in Europe as part of Telefonica de Espana’s TRAC Migration project to bring high-speed internet and voice to suburban and rural Spain. He was chief engineer and vice president of Engineering at AT&T Wireless, and was instrumental in the development and rollout of AT&T Wireless’ Digital Broadband wireless service from 1997-2002 (one of the earliest OFDM-based wireless systems ever deployed and foundational to the subsequent development of OFDM-based 4G standards for WiMAX and LTE).

Saw has a doctorate in electrical engineering from McMaster University, Canada. His dissertation on low-loss surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices is recognized as pioneering work that has helped enable a new generation of RF signal processing elements used in all mobile phones today. He has also published more than 15 technical papers and has six U.S. patents in wireless technologies.  In April 2017, Saw was appointed to the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai.

Kartik Tiwari is the CTO and co-founder of Starsky Robotics, a driverless truck startup which aims to make roads safer and allow truck drivers to work closer to home. Starsky Robotics began moving freight on the highway in early 2017, and one year later became the first company to take the safety driver out of a truck when it drove fully unmanned for seven miles on a closed road in Florida. In June 2019, Starsky did the first ever fully unmanned test on a public highway with live traffic. Kartik has a background in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Marwan Fawaz is an executive advisor at Google. Prior to that he was chief executive officer of Nest, an Alphabet company. Prior to Nest, Marwan was executive vice president of Motorola Mobility where he served as the CEO of Motorola Home, overseeing vision, strategy and operations. During his time there, he repositioned the business to streamline products and services and in 2013, he led the transaction process to divest of the business unit to Arris for $2.35 billion.

Before joining Motorola, Marwan was executive vice president – strategy and chief technology officer of Charter Communications. Earlier in his career, he served as senior vice president and CTO of Adelphia Communications, where he was responsible for the company’s overall technology development and deployment.

Marwan currently serves on several public and private company boards/advisory boards. Full board roles include Synacor (SYNC), CSG International (CSGS), and SCTE Foundation. Advisory boards include ADT, Liberty Global International (LGI), CenturyLink (CTL), Guavus, and Benu Networks.

He holds a BS degree in electrical engineering and MS degree in telecommunications, specializing in satellite communications.

Matt Grob, chief technology officer of XCOM, is responsible for XCOM Labs, which develops innovative wireless technologies.  Matt previously spent over 26 years at Qualcomm in technology and engineering leadership roles. He served as Qualcomm’s EVP and CTO from 2011 to 2017, overseeing R&D and managing a global team of 2,200 employees across various divisions worldwide, and later as EVP/Technology.

Mr. Grob holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Bradley University and a M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He is a trustee of the Fleet Science Center in San Diego, and a volunteer for over a decade at FIRST, the robotics and education organization inspiring future leaders in science and technology.

Matthew Roberts is the Head of Marketing for the Amdocs Americas division based in Toronto, Ontario.  Prior to this Matthew headed up the product marketing unit for Amdocs’ Big Data and Strategic Innovations business unit (BDSI) in London, UK.

Matthew has over twenty years of experience in telecommunications and prior to joining Amdocs he headed up the European Product Marketing team at LG Mobile, he has also held senior marketing positions at Vodafone Group, Motorola and Nokia.

Matthew holds an honors Degree in Economics from the University of Reading.

Mohamed Kande serves as the Advisory Leader. Previously he was PwC’s US and Global Advisory Leader for the technology, media, telecoms, and hospitality industry sectors. His expertise spans the areas of operational strategy, technology development, mergers and acquisitions, and operations management.Before joining PwC in August 2011, Mohamed was the managing partner of PRTM Management Consultants’ Europe, Middle East and South Asia business. Prior to joining PRTM, Mohamed worked for Motorola in Chicago, and for DTI Telecom in Canada deploying and launching telecommunications networks in the USA, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa.He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, an MS in electrical engineering from the University of Montreal, and a BS in electrical engineering from Ecole Supérieure d’IngénieursenGénieElectrique in France.

Neville R. Ray is the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of T-Mobile USA. Mr. Ray joined T-Mobile USA (then VoiceStream) in April 2000 and since December 2010 has served as its Chief Technology Officer, responsible for the national management and development of the T-Mobile USA wireless network and the company’s information technology services and operations. Prior to joining T-Mobile USA, Mr. Ray served as Network Vice President for Pacific Bell Mobile Services. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance. Mr. Ray is an honors graduate of City, University of London and a member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Nick Desai is an accomplished and visionary entrepreneur who has started and led four venture funded start-ups over the last 18 years. Nick is the Co-Founder and CEO of Heal, an on-demand doctor house call app available in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco / Silicon Valley, and San Diego.

For Nick, Heal is more than a company – it’s a mission to fix the broken $3trillion healthcare system. Nick’s previous start-ups have been innovative leaders in technology-enabled fitness and weight loss, social media and mobile applications, and the web’s first self-updating address book.

Nick earned his BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Irvine, where he is in the Engineering Hall of Fame, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from UCLA. Nick is on the board of the UC Irvine Alumni Association and the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Heart Association.

Raja Mukerji is the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) and co-founder at ExtraHop Networks where he is responsible for Customer Services, Solutions Architecture, Business Development, and Technical Alliances. Raja drives customer success, leveraging his operational background in the financial-services industry.

Raja co-founded ExtraHop in 2007, after a seven-year tenure at F5 Networks where he was a Senior Software Architect and co-inventor of the TMOS platform. Raja was a lead developer behind the BIG-IP v9 product and the major accounts liaison for critical customer-facing issues within Product Development. Before F5, Raja worked as a Technology Architect at Strong Capital Management.

Raja is a renowned expert in application delivery and network protocols. He was involved in the FreeBSD project and contributed several enhancements to its TCP stack. Raja holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Rob Tiffany is Vice President and Head of IoT Strategy at Ericsson where he drives strategy and execution at the intersection of 5G, Edge computing and the Internet of Things.

He joined Ericsson in 2018 from Enterprise IoT, where was he was Founder and CEO. There he created an Edge computing system powered by Digital Twins that targeted enterprises and industrials. As CTO and Global Product Manager at Hitachi, he received the Presidential “Product of the Year” award for designing the Lumada Industrial IoT platform. This product landed in Gartner’s “Visionary Quadrant” and was a “Strong Performer” in the Forrester Wave.  Spending most of his career at Microsoft, Rob was the Global Technology Lead for IoT where he incubated the Azure IoT cloud platform and co-authored its reference architecture. Prior to Microsoft, Rob was the Co-Founder of NetPerceptor where he developed one of the industry’s earliest Mobile Device Management (MDM/EMM) platforms for smartphones.

A bestselling author and frequent keynote speaker, Rob serves on the boards of SmartCitiesWorld, the Washington State IoT Council & Kapios Health. He’s the Executive Director of the Moab Foundation focused on global sustainability and is routinely ranked as one of the top IoT experts and influencers in the world by Inc Magazine, Onalytica and others.

Sanjay Ravi is responsible for the development of Microsoft’s global Automotive industry business. He leads the team that supports vehicle manufacturers and mobility service providers including their suppliers and ecosystem partners with innovative solutions and services strategies that accelerate digital transformation. Leveraging the breadth and depth of Microsoft technologies along with partner solutions, Ravi’s team guides the growth and competitive strategies for Microsoft in the following areas: connected vehicles, autonomous vehicle development, smart mobility solutions, connected customer experiences and smart factory & supply chain. Ravi and his team are focused on partnering with automakers to bring new digital capabilities and monetization opportunities to the Automotive market quickly.

Ravi holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.) Madras and a Master of Science degree in Manufacturing Systems from Syracuse University. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School General Management Program.

Shankar Chandran is Senior Vice President, Managing Director and Head of Samsung Catalyst Fund (SCF), Samsung Electronics’ multi-stage venture capital investment fund focused on core technology areas including smart machines, Internet of Things, smart health, deep learning/AI, cloud infrastructure and device level technologies.

Previously, Shankar was part of the founding team at Panorama Capital and has been an active venture investor for 15 years at Panorama Capital and JP Morgan Partners. He has held various engineering, business development and management roles at Applied Materials, Inc., and has been granted eight patents as the primary inventor. He also serves on the Advisory Board at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Santa Clara University, and has served as a director or observer on the boards of over ten companies.

Shankar holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in Materials Science from Arizona State University, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), India.

Steve Willey is co-founder and CEO of Innovega Inc. Over the course of his career – and within multiple companies he has started – he has developed and launched next-generation solutions that benefit from intense innovation. Steve has made contributions in the field of tele-communications, navigation / telematics, video gaming, industrial imaging, and a decade of refining personal displays for AR/VR and related markets. Solutions involve a combination of electronics, precision mechanics, optics, and novel software. Steve’s companies were either purchased or listed on public exchanges. At Innovega, he is leading a team that is responding to all of the challenges experienced by those in the AR/VR industry who are struggling to deliver high-performance digital eyewear that wearers will want to wear. The team’s patented Innovega platform uses modern contact lens technology to leverage the natural capabilities of the human visual system. To prepare for his career, Steve earned a Master’s degree in Applied Science (Electrical Engineering) and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Business. He was also recognized by Babson College and awarded Industrial Fellow status by the University of Washington. Steve is particularly interested in securing the partnerships to harness the impact of 5G and deliver new lifestyle experiences that benefit from new generations of wearable interfaces.

Tara is founder and CEO of Numina, which takes a privacy-first approach to measure all forms of street-level activity for cities and, by making this real-time intelligence queryable via API, turns streets into a developer platform for the urban planning, mobility, and real estate sectors. Individually and with Numina, Tara has led city-scale data projects with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Code for America, Living Cities, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Clinton Foundation, and others. Prior to civic tech, Tara had worked in public health/urban design research, radio and print media, and arts administration. She is also a former Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, Mercedes Benz EQ Fellow, Next City Vanguard, 1776vc Fellow, alumna of URBAN-X and 500 Startups, and winner of the $50,000 Globalhack hackathon. Tara currently co-hosts Women Who Hardware, which brings together the female and gender-nonconforming doers of the NYC hardware ecosystem.

Terry Myerson joined Madrona in 2018 after a long and illustrious career at Microsoft. As Venture Partner, Terry works with Madrona portfolio companies at the earliest stages of innovation and with later stage companies as they build to scale. He also puts his years of product management to work as he helps evaluate new investments for the firm.

Previously, Terry was a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Microsoft, leading the development of Windows, Surface, and Xbox. During his 21-year career at Microsoft, Terry also led the development of Microsoft Exchange, during which time it became the world’s most popular business communications system and the foundation for today’s Office 365.

Prior to his Microsoft career, Terry founded Intersé, one of the first web software companies, which Microsoft acquired in 1997. He graduated Duke University and is now a member of the Duke Pratt School of Engineering Board of Visitors, which provides advice and counsel in long-range planning and academic programs.

Varsha is the Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures India, based in Mumbai. She oversees the Qualcomm Ventures India fund, a $150M allotment dedicated to India and cross border investments. She currently manages
investments in Borqs, Capillary Technologies, Housejoy, MapMyIndia, MindTickle, Portea, PropTiger, Ridlr, Reverie Language Technology, YourStory and ZopNow.

Prior to her current role, Varsha was at Intel Capital investing in US and Indian companies. Some of her investments include companies such as JAMDAT (mobile gaming IPO on NASDAQ), Mobile365 (SMS platform acquired by Sybase), Pollex (Linux co. in China acquired by Mediatek), PacketVideo (mobile video acquired by NTT), Canesta (3D projection technology) in the US, and MCX (multi commodity exchange IPO on BSE), enStage and Allied Digital (remote infrastructure management) in India. Varsha has a M.S. in Electrical
Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from VJTI, University of Bombay.

Wen-Ping Ying is the Executive Director of Emerging Technology and Services of HTC. Dr. Ying joined HTC in August 2009 as the Director of PM for AT&T account and since January 2011 served various capacities in technology incubation, management, to strategies and business development. Prior to joining HTC, Dr. Ying spent most of his career at AT&T Mobility leading new chipset validation efforts and AT&T labs working on speech research and network service concept prototypes. He currently serves as a member of Edge compute Management Platform team prototyping next generation 5G cloudVR edge rendering and delivery technologies. Wen-ping received his BSEE from National Chiao-Tung University in Taiwan and MSEE & Ph.D from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He currently holds 25+ US patents.