Lucia Gradinariu
During almost 30 years of ICT engineering, Dr. Gradinariu effectively contributed to Telecom-Internet convergence in support of the new digital economy. Her professional career includes technical and management positions in Data Center Operations for French RENATER, Product Development and Client Consulting for Oracle Corp, Communications Industry Strategy for CA and Huawei Software Company, Board adviser to Colorado Technical University Computer Sciences Chair where she also taught MIS classes as Adjunct Professor. She currently fulfills the COO role at Zeepabyte, an early stage startup building the fastest distributed analytics engine. She also contributes as adviser to TM Forum Open Digital Program, Frost&Sullivan Growth, Innovation and Leadership initiative, IEEE SDN/NFV Performance WG, and GSMA OneAPI and Network 2020. She is principal innovator in 6 first of the kind industry solutions, commended for “Best quote” (GIL Bites 2014), “Best TMF catalyst project” (CMCC CEO, 2013), “Most efficient foreign expert” (CEO of Huawei Software, 2012) and won “Best Service Delivery Platform” award (GSMA, 2010), “Most innovative catalyst project” (TM Forum, 2008), Oracle World Class award (2004), Oracle Level II award (2002) and a research grant from European Community FP4-TELEMATICS program (1995).
Through her work, she grew awareness to how language, culture and society influence education systems, hence cognition and reasoning about the world, which helps her to deliver executive level consultative workshops on accelerating growth in competitive, socio-economic and regulatory diverse environments.
Dr. Gradinariu holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, MSc in Electronics and Telecommunications from Technical University of Iasi, Romania, a MSc in Information Engineering and a PhD in Technology Management and Economics from Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, Lyon, France and a Management&Leadership Executive Certificate from MIT Sloan School of Management.
Hesham ElBakoury
Hesham ElBakoury is a thirty five year veteran in the telecommunications and data networking industry with an extensive background and expertise in the architecture, design and development of Distributed Systems and Broadband Access, Enterprise and Telco Communications Systems. He is a Principal Architect in Futurewei focusing on advanced technology research and standards in the network research Lab. Prior to joining Futurewei Mr. ElBakoury was Chief Systems Architect in Hitachi-CTA EPON Access Systems Division, and Chief Systems Architect in Nortel and Bell-Northern Research where he led the architecture, design and development of several very successful Switching/Routing, Security and Carrier Ethernet products. In Nortel/BNR, Mr. ElBakoury initiated and led the Autonomic Network research project in the Enterprise division, and the Software Design and Code reuse Project in the Data Networking division. Each project has multiple task forces to address different project activities and tasks. Mr. ElBakoury has been active in different standard groups including IEEE 802, IEEE 1904, IETF, ONF, OIF, MEF, the SCTE Energy 2020 program, and CableLabs where he has been heavily involved in IEEE 802.3/802.1, DPoE/DPoG, DOCSIS 3.1, Full-Duplex DOCSIS 3.1, SDN/NFV, Distributed CCAP Architectures, and Business Services projects. He has several publications and patents in the field of Networking, and he holds M.S.C degree from Waterloo University, ONT, Canada.
Amir Sheikh
Amir Sheikh is an established professional in electronics and telecommunication industry for over 22 years, with an impeccable track record in enterprise architecture, design and development of mobile and telecom services for various enterprises and service providers. He is a problem solver who collaborates with and leads the team to an enterprise architecture that meets industry needs and establishes vision for evolution.
Amir is a recognized subject matter expert across multiple technical domains spanning wireless telephony, enterprise mobility management, security and enablement across verticals such as Healthcare, FinTech, EMM, .EDU and Enterprise. Mr. Sheikh actively participates in industry events; identifies standards and policies via industry-wide committees. He is a recognized contributor in professional field through original contributions to industry or recognized channels. Amir is an active member of IEEE SDN/NFV Performance WG.
Amir hold multiple patents around service level management optimization/ broadband services optimization (US 8631,136) and security enablement for PII (US 8769,621).
Amir is an astronomy enthusiast, is part of core team that established the unique observatory in North Georgia (GA, USA) for various celestial and astronomical events to develop awareness in community. Mr. Sheikh is also a candidate for NASA’s solar system ambassador program for 2018.