Serge Fdida (co-chair)
Sorbonne Université, France
Serge Fdida is a Professor with Sorbonne Université since 1995. His research interests are related to the future internet technology and architecture. He has been leading many research projects in Europe, notably pioneering the activity on federated Internet testbeds. He established PlanetLab Europe in 2007 and the OneLab and FIT facilities. He was one of the initiators of the ACM Conext conference, general chair of ACM Mobicom 2015, IEEE Infocom 2019 and in 2021 and started the NetworkingChannel online program. Serge Fdida has also developed a strong experience related to innovation and industry transfer, – he was the co-founder of the Qosmos and Hopcast companies, – one of the active contributors to the creation of the Cap Digital cluster in Paris and President of EIT Health France. He is currently coordinating SLICES, the first large-scale scientific instrument in Digital Sciences, supported by the EU ESFRI framework. Serge Fdida received his PhD from Université Pierre & Marie Curie (UPMC), Paris in 1984. He received his Habilitation in 1989. Assistant Professor UPMC (1983-1987). Associate Professor UPMC (1988-1991). Professor Université Paris Descartes (1991-1995). Sabbatical at IBM Raleigh in 1995. Professor Sorbonne Université. Adviser ITC Department CNRS (2000-2005). Vice-President European affairs of UPMC (2014-2018). VP International Development of Sorbonne Université (2018-2021).
Manu Gosian (co-chair)
Northeastern University, USA
Abhimanyu (Manu) Gosain is a Senior Director for Institute of Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University, co-Chair for the FCC 6G Technology Advisory Council and Senior Advisor for NTIA ITS and DoD OUSD R&E FutureG. He is in charge of setting strategic goals and the research agenda for a $100M public-private partnership for the NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program and $25M DARPA Colosseum program. He serves as a Board Member for the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance, Founding member for Magma Core Foundation, Academic research council representative for O-RAN Alliance, Technology Roadmap group member for NextG Alliance and co-chair on organizing committee and program committees for 6GSymposium, EuCNC,IEEE InfoCom and ACM WinTech. His numerous professional publications and experience exemplify use-inspired basic research in the field of networking technologies such as 5G,6G, AI/ML, edge computing and Internet of Things. He is an IEEE Senior Member. He received his M.S. degree from Tufts University and M.B.A. from Boston University with High Honors.
Joyce Mwangama (co-chair)
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Joyce Mwangama holds the position of an associate professor and researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (UCT), in Cape Town, South Africa. She obtained her PhD and MSc in Electrical Engineering, along with a BSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering, all from the University of Cape Town. Her prominent research interests centre on communication networks, next-generation networks, and digital health, where she leads efforts in setting up experimental next-generation mobile testbeds. Additionally, Joyce provides her expertise and guidance to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa 5G Forum, contributing to the research and development of 5G/6G technologies.
Bessie Malila (co-chair)
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Bessie Malila is a Research Fellow in the Division of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town. She completed the BSc degree in electrical/electronic engineering at the University of Zimbabwe and the MSc and PhD in Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Cape Town; and held a postdoctoral research fellowship in Biomedical Engineering at the same from 2017 to 2020. She has several years’ experience in the telecommunication industry and research in Digital Health. Her research interests include leveraging mobile technologies to improve the delivery of healthcare services through 5G mobile technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Augmented Reality, Telehaptics and Internet of Medical Things. She is currently developing a secure digital health testbed for evaluation and validation of existing and emerging Telemedicine and mHealth services and applications. She is also investigating the concepts of smart hospitals, and virtual clinics and how these can help improve healthcare coverage in remote and rural communities. She has recently established the Telemedicine and Connected Care research group which will focus on developing and evaluating Telemedicine, Telehealth, mHealth and other digital health applications.
Ignacio Bugueno-Cordova (co-chair)
Chile
Ignacio Bugueno-Cordova is a specialist in next-generation technologies – ICART (Information, Communication, Automation and Robotics Technologies) towards Industry 4.0. He is an Electrical Engineer (with a focus on Telecommunications) and Master of Sciences (with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics) from the University of Chile, in addition to a specialization in Quantum Computing at MIT. Ignacio has a diverse experience in the industry, applying cutting-edge technology in banking, retail, medicine, communications operators, TV Channel / Radio Station, among others, leading several high-impact initiatives. He also has extensive teaching experience in multiple universities for undergraduate and graduate engineering (computer, electrical, industrial, mathematics), medicine, art and architecture. His professional interest is the convergence of artificial intelligence and robotics with telecommunications in Smart Cities and Smart Industries, and his current academic interests include neuromorphic computer vision, robotics, IoT and 5G/6G. He has been involved in Espacio 5G (5G Laboratory), the first campus around this technology in Chile.
Thomas Magedanz (organizer)
TU Berlin, Germany
Thomas Magedanz (PhD) has been professor at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany, leading the chair for next generation networks since 2004. In addition, since 2003 he has been Director of the Business Unit Software-based Networks (NGNI) at the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS in Berlin. 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. His interest is in software-based networks for different vertical industries, with a strong focus on building public and non-public campus networks. He became famous over the last two decades for the development of open software toolkits for building vendor independent open testbeds for next generation mobile networks, such as OpenIMSCore, OpenEPC, OpenMTC, OpenBaton, Open5GCore. His current interest is in the evolution from 5G to 6G and the development of the Organic 6G Core. For more details of his current work look here: www.6G-ready.org and www.open6Gnet.org
Aki Nakao (organizer)
Tokyo University, Japan
Akihiro Nakao received B.S. (1991) in Physics, M.E. (1994) in Information Engineering from the University of Tokyo. He was at IBM Yamato Laboratory, Tokyo Research Laboratory, and IBM Texas Austin from 1994 till 2005. He received M.S. (2001) and Ph.D. (2005) in Computer Science from Princeton University. He taught as an associate professor (2005-2014) and as a professor (2014-2021) in Applied Computer Science, at Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, the University of Tokyo. He has served as Vice Dean of the University of Tokyo’s Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies (2019-2021). In April 2021, he has moved to School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo (2021-present). Since April 2023, he has been serving as Head of Department of System Innovations, School of Engineering. He was appointed as an adviser to the President of the University of Tokyo (2019-2020) and has been a special adviser to the President of the University of Tokyo (2020-present). He is serving as Director, Collaborative Research Institute for NGCI,（Next-Generation Cyber Infrastructure), the University of Tokyo (2021-present). He has been appointed as the first guest professor at the University of Oulu and its Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) in September 2023. For social services, he has been playing several important roles in Japanese government and also at research societies. He has also been appointed Chairman of the 5G Mobile Network Promotion Forum (5GMF) Network Architecture Committee by Japanese government. He has been appointed as Chairman of 5G/Beyond 5G committee, Space ICT Promotion Initiative Forum, International Committee, and Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium as well (2020-present). From 2020 to present, he is a chair and advisor of IEICE technical committee on network systems (NS) as well as a chair of IEICE technical committee on cross-field research association of super-intelligent networking (RISING). He has been elected to become the president of Communication Society, IEICE, in 2024.
Alfonso Ehijo (organizer)
O’Higgins University, Chile
Alfonso Ehijo is an expert in the Chilean Telecom Industry. He is a Master Engineer and Multidisciplinary Architect with 30+ years of experience in LatAm Telecom Operators and the Academy. Alfonso is a leader of high-performance teams in international projects and has a lot of experience as an executive manager and a communicator in international companies focused on Technology and Innovation. He is an Expert Evaluator of R+D+i of technology-based projects. His main professional interest is the application of Intelligence in large-scale Telecom and Power Networks. His main academic interests are university education in Industrial, Computing and Electrical Engineering, and the update of senior industry professionals in Emerging Technologies.
Damien Saucez (hands-on)
Inria Sophia Antipolis, France
Damien Saucez has been a researcher at Inria Sophia Antipolis since 2014. From October 2019 to October 2020 he was network specialist at Safran Electrical and Power in Toulouse, France, working on the design of high-speed deterministic networks for aircraft. He received his master’s degree in Computer Science Engineering from Universitée Catholique de Louvain in 2007 and his Ph.D. thesis entitled Mechanisms for Interdomain Traffic Engineering with LISP from the same university in 2011, under the supervision of Prof. Olivier Bonaventure. His current research interest is Software Defined Networking (SDN) with a particular focus on resiliency and robustness and its application to mission-critical networks. He is actively working to promote reproducibility in research by leading the ACM SIGCOMM 2017 Reproducibility Workshop and by chairing the ACM SIGCOMM Artifacts Evaluation Committee. To make the link between research and industry, he used to contribute to the IETF.
Nikos Makris (hands-on)
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Greece
Nikos Makris is a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Thessaly, Greece and the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH). He received his bachelor’s degree in 2011, a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Communications in 2013, and his Ph.D. in ECE in 2020 from the same department. In the period 2020-2021 he worked as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Yale University, USA. Since 2011, he has been participating in several EU- and NSF-funded collaborative research projects. His research interests include experimentally driven research with several radio access technologies (WiFi, LTE, 5G-NR), conducted under real environment settings, the control- and user-plane disaggregation of base station units, Multi-access Edge Computing and NFV orchestration using open-source platforms.