Dr. Kentaro Ishizu received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D degrees in computer science and engineering from Kyushu university, respectively in 2021, 2003 and 2005. Since then, he has been working with National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and dedicated to R&D on wireless communication systems focusing on heterogeneous networking, cognitive radio, TV white space system, and local 5G (private 5G).

The research style is not limited to logical study and simulations, but extended to its prototyping, field experiments, and international standardization such as IEEE802, ETSI and 3GPP. His current interests include Beyond 5G/6G architecture as open service platform enabling cross-industry orchestration.

From April 2021, Dr. Ishizu is directing a newly launched Beyond 5G Design Initiative at NICT, where his team is responsible for R&D strategy on Beyond 5G/6G, development of international R&D activities, facilitation for academic-industry collaborations, and technical information dissemination including the Beyond 5G/6G white papers that NICT has published since 2021.

Andrew Thiessen is the Head of 5G/xG at the MITRE Corporation, which is a non-profit that works in the public interest across Federal, state, and local governments, as well as industry and academia. Andrew works across the corporation coordinating more than 80 engineers working on US Government projects and leads MITRE Lab’s internal research & development for 5G/xG. Andrew is the MITRE representative to the NextG Alliance Steering Group and the Chair of the NextG Alliance Spectrum Working Group.

Before joining MITRE, Andrew Thiessen was the Division Chief for the Telecommunications and Information Planning Division of the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, where he led the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s efforts on 5G standards and R&D.

Andrew did his undergraduate academic work at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in both Electrical Engineering and English. He received his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and his Master’s in Business Administration from Duke University. Andrew is the recipient of Department of Commerce Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals for his work in public safety communications. He is also the recipient of the DJ Atkinson Technical Award from NPSTC.

Dr. Masahisa Kawashima is currently leading NTT’s R&D of Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) as the IOWN Technology Director. He is also serving as the Chair of the Technology Working Group at IOWN Global Forum. He has been working as a bridge between technologies and businesses since he joined NTT in 1994. His expertise includes high-speed networking, SDN, cloud/edge computing, AI, and data management. Nowadays, he is exploring innovative ways of making products and services cloud-native levering the evolution of optical communication and optoelectronics integration technologies.

Diane Rinaldo is one of the country’s leading authorities on 5G, telecommunications supply chain security and privacy. She served as Acting Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information. During her time at NTIA, Ms. Rinaldo directed the Administration’s efforts on privacy; testified in the House of Representatives and Senate on 5G and Internet security issues; served as a principal advising the White House and Congress on 5G and supply chain; as well as other successes in education and deployment of Internet access around the world.

Prior to her Executive Branch service, Ms. Rinaldo served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she focused on Congress’ landmark cybersecurity legislation, the Cybersecurity Act of 2015. She also served as Congress’ oversight and budget monitor for the National Security Agency and the defense network systems, and as Deputy Chief of Staff to Congressman Mike Rogers as his top technology policy staffer.

Ms. Rinaldo also spent time in the private sector as the Director of Government Affairs and cyber policy for SAP, and as a Vice President at a top consulting firm in Washington, DC.

Recognized for her work on cybersecurity, Ms. Rinaldo was awarded the Executive Women’s Forum’s 2016 Influencer of the Year award; was named one of the top ten people in Washington, D.C. impacting cyber legislation; and has consulted on movies and television.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Maine and an Executive Certificate from Harvard University for Cyber Studies.

Milind Kulkarni is Vice President and Head of InterDigital’s Wireless Labs, responsible for overseeing research and standardization. He brings more than 35 years of advanced technology product development experience and expertise in areas relevant to mobile networks, like radio access networks, cloud-native design, edge computing, and network management and service orchestration.

Prior to joining InterDigital, Milind served as the Vice President of R&D for CommScope within the Intelligent Cellular Networks business unit. In this role he established CommScope’s 5G vision and strategy for Small Cells and led the global R&D team to develop and commercialize vRAN in a North American Tier 1 Mobile Network Operator.

Prior to CommScope, Milind held key leadership positions at Nokia and Motorola while playing a significant role in the development of XG-RAN products. In his early career, Milind also worked on NASA projects at McDonnel Douglas Space Systems as well as Department of Defense projects at Honeywell.

Dr. Ken Figueredo advises on innovation and market development projects that leverage the platform capabilities of mobile communications networks. He recently supported the NextG Alliance on 6G Roadmap and vertical-industry requirement White Papers. He now focuses on market structure and commercial aspects of 6G ecosystems. Standardization is central to Ken’s activities; he contributes to Internet of Things (IoT), AI for IoT and digital twin

initiatives. Ken is a regular speaker at industry conferences and publishes on a broad range of industry topics in ETSI, IEEE, industry-alliance and trade journals. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and a PhD in Self-adaptive Control Systems from the University of Bath (UK).

Mark Kahn has over 35 years of experience in commercial and military wireless systems engineering and management.  His areas of technical expertise include machine learning, statistical signal processing, communications theory, SIGINT, wireless location-finding technologies, cyclostationary signal processing, and array processing.  His current role at Lockheed Martin is Senior Fellow and Principal Investigator for the 5G.MIL^® Program designed to leverage and adapt commercial 5G technology for application in military and intelligence operations.

Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, Mr. Kahn held positions of technical and management leadership at Raytheon, US Wireless Corporation, Protean Radio Networks, and SSPI, where he led development of advanced SIGINT and Communications systems for both Government and commercial-sector customers.  Mr. Kahn has twice been awarded Lockheed Martin’s highest recognition, the NOVA award, for his research in artificial intelligence and 5G communications.  His education includes BSEE, MSEE, and Ph.D. EE (ABD).

Alexandros Kaloxylos (B.Sc., M.Phil., Ph.D.) has 30 years of experience working on numerous research and innovation projects and managing multi-disciplinary teams of varying sizes. Notably, he led the Radio Access Network team of Huawei ERC in Munich, working on 5G network solutions from 2014 until 2017. Since 2019 he has been serving as the executive director of the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA). For two years (2019 – 2021), he has been the Technology Board chair of the European 5G Public-Private Partnership. He is currently the co-chair of the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking Policy WG. In this capacity, he was the co-editor of the “EU-US Beyond 5G/6G roadmap” that was requested by the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC).

He is also a full Professor at the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Peloponnese, and a senior member of IEEE. He has published over 140 papers in international journals, conferences, and book chapters and received more than 3,800 citations. He is also the inventor of more than 20 filed patents for topics related to 5G networks, 10 of which are fully granted.

Bhushan Joshi is the Head of Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility for Ericsson in Market Area North America, where he helps drive the global strategy around corporate responsibility, climate action and digital inclusion. With over 15 years of professional experience, he is a recognized expert in corporate sustainability, business development, energy management, renewable energy, sustainability reporting, strategy development and program management.

At Ericsson, Bhushan focuses on developing strategies to help telecom service providers achieve their energy and sustainability goals amid the transition to 5G and the growth in mobile data traffic. He serves as Chair of the Next G Alliance Green G working group, positioning North America as a global leader in environmental sustainability for wireless technologies like 6G. Bhushan has been recognized for his innovative work, winning Ericsson’s 2021 Top Performance Competition for the USA 5G Energy-Smart Factory’s sustainability impact.

An experienced public speaker, Bhushan has presented at prestigious events like Mobile Word Congress Americas, Techonomy, Network X, GreenBiz and IEEE conferences. He holds an MBA in Sustainable Business Practices from Duquesne University and engineering degrees from Ferris State University and Bharati Vidyapeeth University. Bhushan enjoys welcoming new connections on LinkedIn to discuss his passion for creating a more sustainable world.

Bruno Fromont is Intelsat’s Chief Technology Officer, leading spectrum strategy, asset planning, product development and innovation. Given his deep technical expertise and strategic vision, Bruno is uniquely qualified for this leadership role. As CTO, Bruno engages in technology initiatives across the company in support of our businesses and next generation infrastructure.

Mr. Fromont joined Intelsat in 2000 as Program Manager of Ground Systems Engineering. Since then he has held positions of increasing responsibility. Those positions include Vice President of Corporate Strategy, in which he was responsible for overseeing Intelsat’s strategy and innovation – most notably the business development of the Intelsat Epic program.

Prior to joining Intelsat, Mr. Fromont held senior management positions with Aerospatiale and Alcatel Space. He started his career as a researcher in artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Mr. Fromont earned a Master of Science degree in computer science from Supelec Paris, an MSEE from Institut Polytechnique in Grenoble, France, and an Executive Certificate from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Liren Chen is President and Chief Executive Officer at InterDigital since April 2021. Mr. Chen joined InterDigital from Qualcomm, where he worked for almost 25 years, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Global Head of IP, Legal Counsel. In that role, Mr. Chen was responsible for overseeing Qualcomm’s worldwide intellectual property portfolio (patent, copyright, trademark, and open source) and led technology, business strategy, product management, and global eco-system development for Qualcomm Technology Licensing. Preceding that, Mr. Chen served in various IP and technology roles at Qualcomm, including as Senior Vice President of Engineering, Legal Counsel. He holds 28 granted patents in the U.S. and over 120 granted patents worldwide.

Mr. Chen earned his bachelor’s degree in Automation from Tsinghua University, Beijing; his M.S.E.E. from the University of Maine; his M.B.A. from San Diego State University; and his J.D. degree from the University of San Diego. Mr. Chen is a member of the State Bar of California.

Ray Dolan joined Cohere Technologies Board of Directors in July, 2018 and took on the role of CEO in October 2018. Mr. Dolan has more than two decades of wireless industry experience. Previously, Mr. Dolan was the CEO of Sonus Networks. Mr. Dolan served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Flarion Technologies from its founding in 2000 through its sale to Qualcomm in 2006, during which time Flarion pioneered the development of OFDM for cellular, which became the foundation of 4G as it is known today. Prior to leading Flarion, Mr. Dolan held executive positions at BellAtlantic/NYNEX Mobile (now Verizon). He began his career in the telecommunications industry at PacTel Cellular in Network Operations. Mr. Dolan was deeply involved in the development of IS-95A (CDMA) while Director of Technology for NYNEX Mobile in the early 1990’s. Before joining the wireless industry in 1986, Mr. Dolan served as an Officer in the United States Marine Corps where he served for more than seven years as a Tactical Jet Pilot. Mr. Dolan was an Independent Director of American Tower Corporation from 2003 until 2024. Mr. Dolan holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.