The Huddle 2021 - 5G and Beyond: The Wireless World in 2030

Nigel Jefferies is a senior standards manager with Huawei Technologies and Chairman of the Wireless World Research Forum, a global partnership between industry and academia to develop a research agenda for mobile communications. Previously he was Head of Academic Relationships within Vodafone Group Research & Development and a Principal Mathematician at Racal Research Ltd. In the past he led the European-funded IST project SHAMAN, which studied the security of future mobile systems, and ran the Secure Applications Steering Group for Mobile VCE. Other collaborative research projects on various aspects of security for mobile communications include 3GS3 in the UK-funded LINK programme, and ASPeCT and USECA in the European ACTS programme. His research interests include cryptography, security of systems and applications of mathematics to telecommunications. He received a PhD in functional analysis from Goldsmith’s College, London, and an MA in mathematics from the Queen’s College, Oxford, and is a visiting professor at Kingston University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Chartered Mathematician.

Bio available soon.Ms Aileen Chia is currently the Deputy Chief Executive and Director-General (Telecoms and Post) of the IMDA, a statutory board in the Singapore government which regulates the infocomm, media and postal sectors, and comprises the Personal Data Protection Commission. She has served as a Board member of the Singapore Network Information Centre (a subsidiary of IMDA) since 2009 and has been its Chairman since 2020. Ms Chia seeks to create a competitive, internationally connected and trusted environment to enable the development of the infocomm, media and postal sectors in Singapore through the formulation and implementation of policy and regulatory frameworks, and development strategies for these sectors.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics (Honours) and a Master of Public Policy from the National University of Singapore.

As President of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Asia Pacific, Girish oversees a USD 2.5 Bn business in a diverse and dynamic region covering 12 countries and over 50,000 employees. He is responsible for the growth, strategy and business results in the region, with a dual focus on driving digital transformation and accelerating growth for TCS’ customers, and being a trusted partner for businesses, governments and society at large. 

Girish began his career as a trainee at TCS and has held multiple leadership roles across markets, including as Head of Europe and Head of Middle East and Africa; across technology, as Head of Business Intelligence and across corporate, as Head of Staff for the CEO, who is now Chairman of the Tata Group. 

A proven leader, Girish believes in harnessing the power of technology and innovation to catalyze change and drive sustainable business outcomes. He is a leading proponent of leading with purpose and giving back to the community, and has leveraged technology to solve some of the most complex societal challenges. 

Outside of TCS, Girish regularly lends his time and expertise to different business and industry bodies. He is the Chair of Confederation of Indian Industry – India Business Forum (CII-IBF), ASEAN and Oceania chapters, and a member of CII International Council. He was appointed Business Champion for India-Australia relations by the Australian Government and was recognized with the “Leading CEO” award by the Singapore Human Resource Institute (SHRI) in 2018. 

Girish serves on the Supervisory board of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the pioneer in sustainability reporting standards, where he chairs its Audit, Risk and Compensation committee. He also sits on the international advisory boards of Nyenrode University in the Netherlands, and the Health Innovation Exchange (HIEx), a Geneva-based UN organization dedicated to creating innovative solutions for health-related challenges. 

In recognition of his services to the community, Girish is a recipient of the Frans Banninck Cocq Medal from the Mayor of Amsterdam, and was given Special Recognition (Individual) by the People’s Association in Singapore in 2018. Most recently, Girish was named among Asia’s leading ESG and Sustainability Champions in 2022 for his efforts in harnessing the power of technology and innovation to drive change and create sustainable business outcomes in Asia Pacific. 

Girish holds a Master in Business Administration from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies and is a Computer Science graduate from PSG Tech. He also completed the Wharton’s Corporate Governance program in 2022 as a testament of his commitment to lifelong learning. 

Dr. Selvakumar Manickam is the director of the National Advanced IPv6 Centre and an associate professor specializing in Cybersecurity, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Cloud Computing, Big Data, and Machine Learning. He has authored and co-authored more than 250 articles in journals, conference proceedings, and book reviews and graduated 21 PhDs in addition to masters and undergraduate students. He has given several keynote speeches and dozens of invited lectures and workshops at conferences, universities, and industry. He has given talks and training on Internet Security, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, IPv6, Machine Learning, Software Development, Embedded & OS Kernel technologies at various organizations and seminars. He also lectures in various Computer Science and IT courses, including developing new courseware in tandem with current technology trends. Dr. Selva is involved in various organizations and forums locally and globally. Previously, he was with Intel Corporation and fa ew start-ups working in related areas before moving to academia. While building his profile academically, he is still very involved in industrial projects involving machine-to-machine communication, robotic process automation, machine learning, and data analytics using open-source platforms. He has experience building IoT, embedded, server, mobile, and web-based applications.

Nga Chee Wei is the Director, Emerging Technology Office of Infocomm Media Development Authority, Singapore, where he develops and implements research-to-business strategies, invests in frontier technology, and fosters a collaborative research community that is responsive to industry demand and has strong international mindshare. Among the appointments he held previously, he was the Director (Infocomm Digital Platforms) of Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) where he formulated and executed the digital infrastructure capabilities development plan needed to support the defence digitalisation’s lines of effort. He was also the Chief Executive Officer of Cap Vista Pte Ltd, the strategic investment arm of DSTA, where he developed and drove strategies to maximise the returns of corporate venture capital programmes. Chee Wei holds two masters degrees in electrical engineering with majors in communications and networking engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, US, and National University of Singapore. 

Yi Shen specialises in policy and regulatory issues in the telecommunications, media and technology sector. His experience includes radio spectrum policy and management, digital broadcasting, economic regulation of telecommunications infrastructure, and competition issues in the communications and audio-visual markets.

Most recently, he was a director at Plum Consulting where he specialised in spectrum management issues, such as allocation, valuation and pricing of spectrum for mobile and other uses, cost benefit analyses and impact assessments of policies and regulations relating to mobile and other wireless technologies. Yi Shen has led numerous consultancy projects and advised governments, regulators and industry players around the world, including Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the UK.

His previous experience also includes roles within regulatory authorities in Singapore and the UK. Yi Shen has an MSc in Media and Communication Governance (Distinction) from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Economics and Philosophy from the National University of Singapore.

Alexander Kuhn is a Senior Government Official at the German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA).

He is Deputy Head of Section “International Frequency affairs, frequency utilization concepts and the frequency usage plan” and the preparation for World Radiocommunication Conferences is under his responsibility. He lead the European countries (CEPT) at WRC 2015 and 2019.

Dr. Wen Tong is the CTO, Huawei Wireless. He is the head of Huawei wireless research. In 2011, Dr. Tong was appointed the Head of Communications Technologies Labs of Huawei, currently, he is the Huawei 5G chief scientist and leads Huawei’s 10-year-long 5G wireless technologies research and development.

Prior to joining Huawei in 2009, Dr. Tong was the Nortel Fellow and head of the Network Technology Labs at Nortel. He joined the Wireless Technology Labs at Bell Northern Research in 1995 in Canada.

Dr. Tong is the industry recognized leader in invention and standardization of advanced wireless technologies, he is the key contributor to 3GPP since its inception. Dr. Tong was elected as a Huawei Fellow and an IEEE Fellow. He was the recipient of IEEE Communications Society Industry Innovation Award for “the leadership and contributions in development of 3G and 4G wireless systems” in 2014, and IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Industry Leader Award for “pioneering technical contributions and leadership in the mobile communications industry and innovation in 5G mobile communications technology” in 2018. He is also the recipient of R.A. Fessenden Medal. For the past three decades, he had pioneered fundamental technologies from 1G to 5G wireless and Wi-Fi with more than 450 granted US patents.

Dr. Tong is a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering, and he serves as Board of Director of Wi-Fi Alliance, he is the committee member for “IEEE ComSoc Awards” and “The IEEE Corporate Innovation Award”.

Tony Q.S. Quek is the Cheng Tsang Man Chair Professor with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), leading the Wireless Networks and Decision Systems (WNDS) Group. He is also the Director of Future Communications R&D Programme, ISTD Pillar Head, Sector Lead of SUTD AI Program,  and Deputy Director of the SUTD-ZJU IDEA. He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, respectively. At MIT, he earned the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is a Fellow of IEEE.

His current research interests include wireless communications and networks, network intelligence,  6G, URLLC, security, and IoT.

Thomas Magedanz (PhD) has been professor at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, leading the chair for next generation networks (www.av.tu-berlin.de) since 2004. In addition, since 2003 he has been Director of the Business Unit Software-based Networks (NGNI) at the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS (www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/go/ngni) in Berlin. Recently, he also joined the advisory board of Uniberg Group AG in Germany in February 2023.

For 35 years Prof. Magedanz has been a globally recognized ICT expert, working in the convergence field of telecommunications, Internet and information technologies understanding both the technology domains and the international market demands. He often acts as an independent technology consultant for international ICT companies. In the course of his applied research and development activities he created many internationally recognized prototype implementations of global telecommunications standards that provide the foundations for the efficient development of various open technology testbeds around the globe. His interest is in software-based 5G networks for different verticals, with a strong focus on public and non-public campus networks. The Fraunhofer 5G Playground (www.5G-Playground.org) represents, in this regard, the world´s most advanced Open 5G testbed which is based on the Open5GCore software toolkit (www.open5Gcore.org), representing the first reference implementation of the 3GPP 5G standalone architecture, which is currently also used by more than 110 international customers for testing against different RAN equipment in different use cases. For several years, he is actively supporting the development of open 5G campus networks based on the Open5GCore considering emerging campus networks as the prime spot for 5G innovation and starting point for the evolution towards 6G. Since 2022 he is coordinating the national BMWK flagship project CampusOS (www.Campus-OS.io) which aims to build an ecosystem for emerging open campus networks. In addition he acts as senior principal investigator for 6G core architectures within the two German 6G Hubs, namely Open6GHub and 6G-RIC.

His current research is targeting the 5G evolution towards 6G, including Core-RAN integration (including OpenRAN integration), integration of Satellite/Non-terrestrial Networks and 5G/6G, as well as AI/ML based 5G/6G automated network control and management, in which he is designing a new organic 6G core network. For the most recent research activities see also www.6G-ready.org

Dr. Tsunehiko Chiba is currently Chief Wireless Architect, CTO Office at VIAVI Solutions. He has more than 22-years’ experience in mobile industry including 3G/4G commercial development, 4G/5G standardization & research expert as part of global leading vendor and operator. Especially, he has been one of the main contributors in 3GPP, O-RAN Alliance and ITU with several patent portfolio as well as next generation research forums. His current role at VIAVI Solutions is standardization delegation to 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance as well as technical lead in technology strategy and research.

Alexander Kuhn is a Senior Government Official at the German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA).

He is Deputy Head of Section “International Frequency Affairs, Frequency Utilization Concepts and the Frequency Usage Plan” and the preparation for World Radiocommunication Conferences is under his responsibility. He led the European countries (CEPT) at WRC 2015 and 2019.

Dr. Ebtesam Almazrouei is the Director and Co-Founder of the Al-Cross Center Unit at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII). Focused on delivering AI and advanced tech solutions for international and national stakeholders across multiple industries from healthcare, energy, biotech, telecommunication, education, and security among others.

Dr. Ebtesam Almazrouei leadership and expertise have been key in the successful development of Falcon LLM (home-built rival to ChatGPT) which significantly outperforms models like BLOOM-62 and GPT-3. Matching the performance of other high-performing LLMs from DeepMind (Chinchilla), Google (PaLM-62B), and Anthropic, making it one of the top players in the market today. Additionally, she led the development of Noor, the world’s largest Arabic large language model (LLM) model to date.

Dr. Almazrouei is recognized worldwide for her contributions to AI and was featured in Leading AI Women in the World in 2023 list, alongside other distinguished women in the field. She is also an advocate for sustainability and AI for Good initiatives, as well as the general chair of Abu Dhabi AI Connect and TPC chair of many IEEE international conferences.

Her contributions extend beyond her work at TII where she leads the big data expert subcommittee of the UAE Council for AI and Blockchain and is a member of the worldwide steering board of the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF). She is a scientific author, patent inventor, entrepreneur, and renowned speaker, known for her keynote speeches at prestigious summits such as the AI Summit in London, World AI Cannes Festival, AI Everything Summit, Global GITEX, IEEE conferences, AI for Good, and Tech summits.

Dr. Ebtesam Almazrouei previously worked in the telecommunications industry delivering business solutions for companies like BT, Etisalat, and KU where she has been able to leverage her expertise to develop advanced tech solutions and products for stakeholders across multiple industries on the Internet of Things (IoTs), autonomous vehicles and drones, wireless localization, intelligence network optimization, 5G and beyond.

Dr. Ebtesam is the first Emirati woman to hold a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence for Wireless Communication Engineering and Computer Science. She obtained her Ph.D. and MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Khalifa University of Science and Technology and earned a BSc in Communication and Electrical Engineering from the United Arab Emirates University.

Nigel Jefferies is a senior standards manager with Huawei Technologies and Chairman of the Wireless World Research Forum, a global partnership between industry and academia to develop a research agenda for mobile communications. Previously he was Head of Academic Relationships within Vodafone Group Research & Development and a Principal Mathematician at Racal Research Ltd. In the past he led the European-funded IST project SHAMAN, which studied the security of future mobile systems, and ran the Secure Applications Steering Group for Mobile VCE. Other collaborative research projects on various aspects of security for mobile communications include 3GS3 in the UK-funded LINK programme, and ASPeCT and USECA in the European ACTS programme. His research interests include cryptography, security of systems and applications of mathematics to telecommunications. He received a PhD in functional analysis from Goldsmith’s College, London, and an MA in mathematics from the Queen’s College, Oxford, and is a visiting professor at Kingston University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Chartered Mathematician.

Dr Addom is an Adviser, Agriculture and Fisheries Trade Policy at the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, currently advising the 56 Commonwealth member states on policy issues relating to digital agriculture and digital fisheries through the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda (CCA) for Trade and Investment programme. He has over 20 years of experience with digitalisation and smallholder agriculture. He holds doctorate in information science and technology from Syracuse University School of Information Studies, USA, and master’s in international agriculture and rural development from Cornell University, USADr Addom is an Adviser, Agriculture and Fisheries Trade Policy at the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, currently advising the 54 Commonwealth member states on policy issues relating to digital agriculture and digital fisheries through the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda (CCA) for Trade and Investment programme. He has over 20 years of experience with digitalisation and smallholder agriculture. He holds doctorate in information science and technology from Syracuse University School of Information Studies, USA, and master’s in international agriculture and rural development from Cornell University, USA

A Qualified Helicopter and Fixed wing pilot with more than 10 000 hours of flight time on numerous aircraft, currently Leading the Special Projects Division at the Kambyan Network. Previously, as the Head of Training at UAS ROBOTICS ACADEMY, pioneered the Remotely Processed Autonomous Field Operations Concept and the subsequent Training requirements.

Having passed his sixth decade; focused on achieving the Vision of Humanising Technologies related to the Internet of Everything ( with the goal to make things better for everyone.

Specialties: More than 30 years of aviation expertise. Started aviation career in the Royal Malaysian Air Force, in 1996 left the RMAF and has been involved in numerous project management efforts.

An Operational Pilot, instructor and Examiner in both Military and Civilian aviation in Malaysia, also in US, Indonesia and Philippines.

Instrumental in several ICT projects in the domain of the Aerospace industry, and currently involved in the exciting new frontier of autonomous UAS operations, as a Qualified sUAS Instructor.

Veerachai Tanpipat (D.Eng.) is a remote sensing engineer and geographer whose professional interests include applying geoinformatics, S&T, and social science to better manage disaster response and preparedness. His work has largely focused on wildfires, transboundary haze, and flooding throughout SEA. His previous work includes, but not limited, to an advisory role to the DG for the Royal Forestry Department, the DG for the Pollution Control Department, collaborative efforts with NASA-LANCE-FIRMS, NASA-JPL, NASA-GSFC, NASA-AMES, NOAA-NESDIS, NOAA-NGDC and the CAMS-ECMWF. Currently, he is a Senior Expert and Consultant at Hydro- Informatics Institute, a founding member of the Upper ASEAN Wildland Fire Special Research Unit (WFSRU), Senior Expert Faculty Member of Forestry at Kasetsart University under Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Advisor to DG of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, DG of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources and Fire Hawk Special Unit of the Royal Forest Department under Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Co-chair of APAN Disaster Mitigation WG, a member of APAN Technical Comittee, APAN Agriculture WG and Chairperson of APAN Open and Sharing Data WG.

Bharat B Bhatia is the President and CEO of the ITU-APT Foundation of India (IAFI) and Vice Chairman and head of Asia Pacific for the World Wireless Research Forum (WWRF). Earlier he was also the President of TEMA – India’s Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association and Vice President of Association of Telecom Industries of Singapore (ATIS).  Mr. Bhatia was a senior spectrum regulator and ICT policy specialist with the Indian Ministry of Communications, where he worked in various departments for 21 years. He also worked in Motorola USA for 22 years where he was heading the international spectrum team of Motorola until 2018 and was actively involved in Public Safety and emergency communications. Mr. Bhatia was instrumental in opening of the Indian telecom to the private sector, including issue of the first ever cellular licenses in India and was also a key architect of India’s first ever National Frequency Allocation Plan, NFAP-81 and the first ever published NFAP in 2000. Mr. Bhatia has been actively participating in International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency for ICT meetings for the last 24 years and is currently the chairman of the ITU working group on 5G for industrial applications.

Dr. Rafay Iqbal Ansari is an Engineering professional with over 10 years cumulative experience in the field of engineering and business zone in telecommunications industry and academia. He is currently working at WSP UK Ltd. as a Technology Strategy Consultant (Connectivity), driving the connectivity capability for different sectors. He is experienced in wireless communication design and development with a special interest in 5G and beyond networks. Dr. Ansari has worked on projects related to internet-of-things (IoT) for healthcare and agriculture, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)-based networks, intelligent surfaces, emergency and public safety networks, and has led R&D on future communication technologies through international collaborations.  He has experience in planning and deployment of PSTN and gigabit passive optical network (GPON). Dr. Ansari has published his work at several reputed journals, book chapters and conferences. He has given several talks and presented innovative technologies at highly reputed forums.

Dr. Tomohiko Moriyama, M.D., Ph.D. is a gastrointestinal endoscopist and a director of Telemedicine Development Center of Asia (TEMDEC), Kyushu University Hospital. For more than 20 years, he has been keen on endoscopic diagnosis and treatment of early gastrointestinal cancer and has taught gastroenterology and endoscopic techniques to more than 100 Japanese residents and 200 foreign trainees. Since 2016, he has been involved in telemedicine projects, which widely and dramatically spread worldwide during the pandemic. He is now the chairman of Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) Medical Working Group, which promotes better healthcare and medical education through telemedicine.

Bio available soon.

T. J. Lim is the Deputy Dean and Associate Dean (Education) of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney. From June 2011 to January 2020, he was a tenured professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the National University of Singapore. He served as Vice Dean (Graduate) in NUS Engineering from September 2015 to December 2019. From December 2000 to May 2011, he was Assistant, Associate then full Professor at the ECE Department of the University of Toronto. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, was a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2017, and was a co-recipient of the IEEE Communications Society Heinrich Hertz Award in 2020. He has also served on editorial boards of several international journals, such as the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, and on organizing and technical program committees of several international conferences. He obtained the Bachelor of Engineering degree with first-class Honours from NUS in 1992, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge in 1996. His research interests lie in wireless communications generally, and more particularly in the applications of machine learning in that domain with connections to cyber-security.

Dr. Umejima is the expert and the project leader of the Systems Committee on Smart Energy in International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in charge of standard development of the Smart Grid. Dr. Umejima has addressed electricity system research and entrepreneurial education in Keio University, Japan for academic contribution. His research expertises have assigned him to the member of Smart Meter Conference, the chairman of Cyber Security for Energy Resource Aggregation System Promotion Conference, and the Advisor of ICT adoption in Education, in Japanese Government, Dr. Umejima paved the way of deploying the open architecture on the Energy Resource Aggregation System and the distance learning system in K12 education with highlighting security and interface designs. Dr Umejima’s activity has enabled that 100 million devices, e.g. air conditioner, station battery, and nationwide power meters in Japan, speak a common language defined by ISO/IEC14543-4-3(ECHONET Lite). IPv6 Forum awarded him the IPv6 world leader in 2015. 

Dr Sumei Sun is the Acting Executive Director (Research), Head of the Communications and Networks Department and a Principal Scientist at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), A*STAR, Singapore. She is also holding a joint appointment with the Singapore Institute of Technology, and an adjunct appointment with the National University of Singapore, both as a full professor. Her current research interests are in next-generation wireless communications, cognitive communications and networks, industrial internet of things, communications-computing-control integrative design, joint radar-communication systems, and signal intelligence.

Sumei has a strong passion in industry-relevant research and technology creation. She has authored and co-authored 300 technical papers and received three best paper awards. She is the inventor/co-inventor of over thirty patented technologies, with most of them licensed to industries.

She has served as the Wireless Systems Work Group Chair of the IMDA’s Telecommunications Standard Advisory Committee (TSAC) during 2015-2018, and member of the TSAC since 2018. During 2017-2018, she served in the Advisory Panel for preparing The Singapore Smart Industry Readiness Index (SIRI) white paper championed by the Economic Development Board (EDB). In 2018, she served as Chairperson of the Services and Digital Economy (SDE) Technology Roadmap Work Group 1 (Future Communications and IoT) and member of the SDE Technology Roadmap Technical Committee, for transforming the future of digital services. The SDE Technology Roadmap development was championed by IMDA, in partnership with NRF and A*STAR. Since 2021, she’s been chairing the Special 5G Strategy Task Force under IMDA’s Telecommunications Standards Advisory Committee (TSAC).
Sumei has been an active volunteer in IEEE and is the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology, member of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications Steering Committee, and a Distinguished Speaker of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society 2018-2024. She is also the Director of IEEE Communications Society Asia Pacific Board and an elected member at large with the IEEE Communications Society.

Prior to joining ERI@N in Nov 2015, Liang Mong has spent over 6 years with Schneider Electric Singapore Pte Ltd as Energy Efficiency (EE) Manager/Consultant, responsible for the energy efficiency (EE) solutions and audit offers in local companies. During his time at Schneider, he has provided energy audit services and energy efficiency solutions to commercial buildings, hospitals, data centers and industry plants (pharma and wafer fab plants).

He is a certified energy manager (CEM) and a practitioner (CMVP) in International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocols (IPMVP). He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and PhD in instrumentation and was a faculty staff of School of EEE, NTU from 1984-2009. His current interest is in energy analytics and management system, and smart sensor network.​

Dr Addom is an Adviser, Agriculture and Fisheries Trade Policy at the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, currently advising the 56 Commonwealth member states on policy issues relating to digital agriculture and digital fisheries through the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda (CCA) for Trade and Investment programme. He has over 20 years of experience with digitalisation and smallholder agriculture. He holds doctorate in information science and technology from Syracuse University School of Information Studies, USA, and master’s in international agriculture and rural development from Cornell University, USADr Addom is an Adviser, Agriculture and Fisheries Trade Policy at the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, currently advising the 54 Commonwealth member states on policy issues relating to digital agriculture and digital fisheries through the Commonwealth Connectivity Agenda (CCA) for Trade and Investment programme. He has over 20 years of experience with digitalisation and smallholder agriculture. He holds doctorate in information science and technology from Syracuse University School of Information Studies, USA, and master’s in international agriculture and rural development from Cornell University, USA

Mahesh Uttamchandani is the World Bank’s Manager for Digital Development in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP).  In this capacity, he oversees the World Bank’s lending, advisory and knowledge programs in the area of digital development in all EAP countries.  

Mr. Uttamchandani, a Canadian national, joined the World Bank in April 2006, as Senior Counsel in the Legal Vice-Presidency.  He has since held various positions in both the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, including global manager for Financial Inclusion & Infrastructure where he led the Bank’s work on expanding access to finance through digital financial services and the financial sector aspects of digital ID and digital payments.  

Prior to joining the Bank, Mr. Uttamchandani worked at the EBRD in London, UK and as a commercial litigator at a leading law firm.  Mr. Uttamchandani has taught and lectured at universities around the world and has published extensively, including key World Bank publications on fintech and as an author in the World Bank’s flagship World Development Report, 2022.

Knud Erik Skouby is professor and director of center for Communication, Media and Information technologies, Aalborg University-Copenhagen. Has a career as a university teacher and within consultancy since 1972. The working areas have for the last 25 years been within the telecom area focusing on mobile/ wireless: Techno-economic Analyses; Development of mobile/ wireless applications and services: Regulation of telecommunications.

Project manager and partner in a number of international, European and Danish research projects. He has served on a number of public committees within telecom, IT and broadcasting; as a member of boards of professional societies; as a member of organizing boards, evaluation committees and as invited speaker on international conferences; published a number of Danish and international articles, books and conference proceedings in the areas of convergence, mobile/ wireless development, telecommunications regulation, technology assessment (information technology and telecommunications), demand forecasting and political economy. Co-director of CTIF-International; Chair of WG1 in Wireless World Research Forum; Special Advisor to GISFI (The Global ICT Standardization Forum for India).

Liu Fei is the Chief researcher for 6G trustworthiness in Huawei. Her practice areas include telecom network security standardization, industrialization, and strategy development. 

Her team has been developing 5G security standards accepted by 3GPP and ITU-T, and security solutions for industrial applications. The team currently working on the 6G-oriented security, privacy and trust technologies, including trust model and architecture, consensus schemes, privacy preservation, and trust measurement.

While working at China Mobile, she led the practical projects, Mobile-TV Security Project, Mobile e-Payment Security Project, and Key Infrastructure Project, contributing to cross-industry cooperation. 

She was one of the first major contributors to the opening of China’s cryptographic algorithm to 3GPP standards. As a result of these successful projects, she and her team have received several Science and Technology Progress Awards from the China Communications Standardization Association.

Liu Fei was included as Singapore 100 Women in Tech (SG 100 WIT) list 2021.

Sudipta Chattopadhyay received the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the National University of Singapore, in 2013. He is an Assistant Professor with the Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore. His general research interests lie in the broad area of cyber security including but not limited to security for AI, Wireless Technologies, and Internet of Things (IoTs). Together with his student, he discovered SweynTooth and BrakTooth, families of Bluetooth vulnerabilities that affect billions of devices worldwide. His research has been featured in WIRED, PC Magazine, Hacker News, among others. His discovery of SweynTooth and BrakTooth have also resulted cyber security alerts from government regulatory agencies including CSA (Singapore), DHS (USA), and FDA (USA). 

Dr. Selvakumar Manickam is the director of the National Advanced IPv6 Centre and an associate professor specializing in Cybersecurity, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Cloud Computing, Big Data, and Machine Learning. He has authored and co-authored more than 250 articles in journals, conference proceedings, and book reviews and graduated 21 PhDs in addition to masters and undergraduate students. He has given several keynote speeches and dozens of invited lectures and workshops at conferences, universities, and industry. He has given talks and training on Internet Security, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, IPv6, Machine Learning, Software Development, Embedded & OS Kernel technologies at various organizations and seminars. He also lectures in various Computer Science and IT courses, including developing new courseware in tandem with current technology trends. Dr. Selva is involved in various organizations and forums locally and globally. Previously, he was with Intel Corporation and fa ew start-ups working in related areas before moving to academia. While building his profile academically, he is still very involved in industrial projects involving machine-to-machine communication, robotic process automation, machine learning, and data analytics using open-source platforms. He has experience building IoT, embedded, server, mobile, and web-based applications.

Michelle Chibba brings unique insights into implementing Privacy by Design that come from her early involvement in the privacy regulatory space and extensive involvement with a wide range of corporate initiatives requiring a Privacy by Design lens. Along with Dr. Cavoukian, Ms. Chibba teaches a course on Privacy by Design at the Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) in Canada.

Ms. Chibba was Project Editor to the ISO Committee (PC317) for the international standard on Privacy by Design for Consumer Products, ISO 31700-1:2023. She is also involved in early development work in AI and privacy guidance, digital twins, and model-based software/systems engineering for privacy.  Recently, she led a successful certification process for ISO27001 – Information Security Management System. She is a frequent speaker on Privacy by Design and emerging data privacy/technology issues and has written a number of publications on privacy and technology.

Hendrik Berndt held various C-level and manager positions in research and operation in the telecommunication industry: 2001–2014, chief technology officer of DoCoMo’s Communications Laboratories in Europe; 1993–2000, in the United States, within Bellcore, Red Bank, New Jersey, later as executive director of advanced technology for Global One in Reston, Virginia, and as the chief technology officer of the Telecommunication Information Networking Architecture–Consortium headquarters in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. From 2000 to 2010, he taught concurrently as visiting professor at the Global Information and Telecommunication Institute, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. He is currently a senior consultant and communication technology chair at University Kassel, Germany, and vice president of the Wireless World Research Forum for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Adrian Scrase played a central role in the creation of the “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP) and is responsible for the operations of the 3GPP Project Co-ordination Group. He heads 3GPPs’ Mobile Competence Centre (MCC) which is an International team of 20 experts who provide comprehensive support to the Project.

He was also principally involved in the formation of the “oneM2M” Partnership Project and oversees ETSI’s support to that initiative.

He is CTO within ETSI with operational responsibility for all of ETSI’s standards production activities.  He has more than 40 years experience in the telecommunications field, which includes 34 years of experience in standardization.

Mérouane Debbah is Chief Researcher at the Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi. He is an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Machine Learning at the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. He received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, France. He was with Motorola Labs, Saclay, France, from 1999 to 2002, and also with the Vienna Research Center for Telecommunications, Vienna, Austria, until 2003. From 2003 to 2007, he was an Assistant Professor with the Mobile Communications Department, Institut Eurecom, Sophia Antipolis, France. In 2007, he was appointed Full Professor at CentraleSupelec, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. From 2007 to 2014, he was the Director of the Alcatel-Lucent Chair on Flexible Radio. From 2014 to 2021, he was Vice-President of the Huawei France Research Center. Since 2021, he is leading the AI & Telecom Systems center at the Technology Innovation Institute. He is an IEEE Fellow, a WWRF Fellow, a Eurasip Fellow, an AAIA Fellow, an Institut Louis Bachelier Fellow and a Membre émérite SEE.

Prof. Maziar Nekovee is Managing Director of 6G Lab at the University of Sussex and Dean of the Sussex-Zhejiang Gongshang AI Institute.  His current research focus is on energy efficient and sustainable radio access technologies for 6G, and 5G/6G/AI for vertical sectors. More recently, he has been also working on 5G/6G NTN and positioning for the space, satellite, and navigation sectors. Maziar is the founding Chair of Networld Europe “Enabling Technologies for Future Vertical Ecosystem Transformation” WG and is anl academic member 6G Infrastructure Association (6GIA) and the UK’s SONIC ((SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Centre) Labs Industry Steering Group. Prior to joining the University of Sussex in 2017, he was with Samsung Electronics R&D, where he established and led the company’s overall and highly successful H2020 research and collaborations in 5G, working with industry, SME and academia across the EU, the UK and internationally in several 5GPPP projects, as well being an industry member of 5GIA.  Prior to that he was a team leader and senior scientist at BT, where he was involved in leading several EU and UK-funded research collaborations consortia with industry, academia, and SMEs. Maziar is the author of 200+ highly cited papers and a bestselling academic book and has 15 patents. He has a PhD in Physics and a first degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (cum laude) from Delft University of Technology, the Netherland. Maziar is a sough-after speaker and panellist in international conference and industry events, having delivered 100+ keynote, invited talks and panels in the last ten years.

Dr. LEE, Hyeon Woo is a Professor at DanKook University in Korea, a TTA 5G Standard Committee vice chair, and a 5G forum executive committee vice chair. 

He served as a National R&D Program Director under Ministry of Knowledge Economy of Korea from 2009 until 2013. He was a head of Global Standard & Research Lab. of Samsung Electronics from 1984 until 2009. 

He received BSEE from Seoul National University in 1985, MBA from Sogang University in 1989, ME and Ph.D degree at KAIST in 1994 and 2003 respectively. 

He works on 5G/6G mobile communication, international standards, and R&D strategy planning. He is a member of KICS, IEEE and IEICE.

Iwao Hosako received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1993. After two years with NKK Corp’s ULSI Laboratory from 1993 to 1994, he joined Communications Research Laboratory (former name of NICT). 　He is currently the Executive Director of the Beyond 5G Research and Development Promotion Unit and the Terahertz Research Center at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan. His research focuses on terahertz band semiconductor devices, cameras, and wireless systems. He was the Vice-Chair of the IEEE 802.15.3d Task Group and is currently the Vice-Chair of the IEEE 802.15 Standing Committee Terahertz (SC-THz) and IEEE 802.15.3mb. He was serving as a working group member of the Beyond 5G (6G) Promotion Strategy Roundtable of the Ministry of Internal affairs and Communications, Japan from Jan. 2020 to Jun. 2020.

Eng Wei Koo is the Head of Standards and Solutions Strategy at Keysight Technologies. Eng Wei has over 20 years of experience working on mobile network standards and developing lab tests and live network assurance and optimization solutions for radio access and core networks. Eng Wei is responsible for Keysight’s strategy for its mobile networks test solutions portfolio and standards engagements for 5G/B5G in 3GPP and O-RAN ALLIANCE.

He is currently a co-chair of the O-RAN ALLIANCE Minimum Viable Plan Committee (MVP-C), which is primarily responsible for the O-RAN roadmap and release planning.

Eng Wei has co-authored two books focusing on 4G and 5G lab testing, field optimization, and assurance, several whitepapers, and holds several patents for 5G radio test and optimization techniques.

Ms. Thabisa Faye has 10 years of experience in the ICT sector across the African continent, having worked in over fifteen (15) countries. She has contributed to policy formation projects across the ICT sector, including leading the task of drafting the Postal Service Policy Green Paper in South Africa.

Ms Thabisa has experience in ICT regulatory Analysis, Economic Advisory, Renewable, Trust Management, Strategic Repositioning, Public Policy, and Project Management.

Throughout the years, she has played a critical role in the country’s technological advancements over the years; where she also served as the company representative to the ICT industry body, South African Communications Forum, by serving on the Policy and the Finance Committee and held two terms on the Board.

Ms. Faye holds a Master’s degree in International Development Management from the University of Westminster Business School, an Honours Degree in Development Studies from the University of the Western Cape and a Project Management Certificate from the University of Witwatersrand.

Reg is a seasoned programme director with over 30 years’ experience within the telecommunication industry. Reg has a proven track record of programme delivery within organisations such as Ericsson, Vodafone and the GSMA. Reg is passionate about the Role of Technology in Reducing the Impact on Environment and harnessing the ability of future networks to deliver a better society.

Responsibilities within NGMN:

• Coordination of Strategy Committee
• Management of 6G Work Programme
• Management of Security Work Programme
• Cooperation partner management with standard bodies
• Representation of NGMN at international industry events

Bharat B Bhatia is the President and CEO of the ITU-APT Foundation of India (IAFI) and Vice Chairman and head of Asia Pacific for the World Wireless Research Forum (WWRF). Earlier he was also the President of TEMA – India’s Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association and Vice President of Association of Telecom Industries of Singapore (ATIS).  Mr. Bhatia was a senior spectrum regulator and ICT policy specialist with the Indian Ministry of Communications, where he worked in various departments for 21 years. He also worked in Motorola USA for 22 years where he was heading the international spectrum team of Motorola until 2018 and was actively involved in Public Safety and emergency communications. Mr. Bhatia was instrumental in opening of the Indian telecom to the private sector, including issue of the first ever cellular licenses in India and was also a key architect of India’s first ever National Frequency Allocation Plan, NFAP-81 and the first ever published NFAP in 2000. Mr. Bhatia has been actively participating in International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency for ICT meetings for the last 24 years and is currently the chairman of the ITU working group on 5G for industrial applications.

Nigel Jefferies is a senior standards manager with Huawei Technologies and Chairman of the Wireless World Research Forum, a global partnership between industry and academia to develop a research agenda for mobile communications. Previously he was Head of Academic Relationships within Vodafone Group Research & Development and a Principal Mathematician at Racal Research Ltd. In the past he led the European-funded IST project SHAMAN, which studied the security of future mobile systems, and ran the Secure Applications Steering Group for Mobile VCE. Other collaborative research projects on various aspects of security for mobile communications include 3GS3 in the UK-funded LINK programme, and ASPeCT and USECA in the European ACTS programme. His research interests include cryptography, security of systems and applications of mathematics to telecommunications. He received a PhD in functional analysis from Goldsmith’s College, London, and an MA in mathematics from the Queen’s College, Oxford, and is a visiting professor at Kingston University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Chartered Mathematician.