About
Us

Brent Hodges

IoT Planning and Product Strategy | Dell

Brent has over twenty years of experience in strategy, commercial operations, marketing, business development and production management in areas ranging from specialty plastics to wireless semiconductors to technology standards to smart grid. Brent has worked for companies from the Fortune 500 to several start-ups and since 2001 has been working to connect ‘things’ (not people) to networks and IT systems.

Prior to Dell, Brent was Chief Commercial Officer for Innovari, selling hardware, software and services to electric utilities to change the way the world uses energy. He was responsible for the global business structure and contracting with customers. Before Innovari, Brent was at Tendril Networks where he was Senior Vice President and General Manager responsible for rest of world sales and delivery of Tendril solutions to electric service providers. Brent established Tendril’s Australia subsidiary and built the local Melbourne delivery team for Tendril’s largest customer. Prior to Tendril, Brent was at NRG Energy and Reliant Energy where he led strategy and development for Smart Grid Service offerings. Prior to working in the electric industry, Brent directed Marketing and Strategy at the ZigBee Alliance. From 2001 to 2005, Brent was one of the initial employees at Boston start-up Ember Corporation (now Silicon Labs) where he was responsible for sales, marketing and business development for wireless sensor networks. Brent also ran several manufacturing operations across the US for a specialty plastics company supplying products to automotive, beverage and industrial customers.

Brent has been a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences as an advocate for new technologies and business models. In 2010, he was named as one of Greentech Media’s 100 Movers and Shakers of the Smart Grid, and was elected to two terms on the Governing Board of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) from 2010 to 2013. He previously served on the Board of Directors for the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) and the ZigBee Alliance.

Brent holds a B.S. in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University, an M.S. in industrial engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He enjoys spending time with his wife and three children, watching their sports activities and traveling.

Matt Vasey

Director, IoT Business Development | Microsoft

Matt Vasey is Director, AI and IoT Business Development at Microsoft, focused on expanding the ecosystem of technology partners, standards bodies, and other innovation enablers that are required for the new generation of IoT Applications, Services, and Systems that serve both individuals and businesses.  Previously, he led Microsoft ‘s Embedded Sales team in the Americas, working with industrial OEMs to build a wide variety of industrial and consumer devices across a range of vertical industries.

Mr. Vasey has represented Microsoft as a spokesperson to the press and analyst community on a variety of topics including Enterprise IT, Cloud Services, Service Providers and most recently the Internet of Things.   In addition to his work at the OpenFog Consortium, he serves as a Board member for the OPC Foundation.  Outside of Microsoft, Mr. Vasey has led regional and national sales teams for leading technology firms, driving revenue and business expansions ranging from startups to $1B+ revenue public companies.  While at ODIN (an Ingram Micro company) he drove business and corporate development with Tier 1 investment banks, venture capital firms and technology partners.  Mr. Vasey earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Trent University in Canada.

Chris Steck

Head of Standardization, IoT & Industries | Cisco

Mung Chiang

Visiting Faculty, Princeton University; Dean of the College of Engineering, Purdue University | Purdue University

Dr. Mung Chiang is the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering at Purdue University and a visiting professor at Princeton University.  Formerly, he was the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. His research on networking received the 2013 Alan T. Waterman Award, the highest honor to US young scientists and engineers. His textbook “Networks: Friends, Money and Bytes” and online course reached 250,000 students since 2012.

Dr. Chiang founded the Princeton EDGE Lab in 2009, which bridges the theory-practice gap in edge networking research by spanning from proofs to prototypes. He co-founded a few startups in mobile, IoT and big data areas. Dr. Chiang was the Director of Keller Center for Innovations in Engineering Education at Princeton University and the inaugural Chairman of Princeton Entrepreneurship Council.

Bill Curtis

| ARM

Bill Curtis is the Software Strategist for New Business Development at ARM.  Prior to this role, he served as lead Strategist for ARM’s IoT Business Unit.  Before joining ARM in 2012, Bill was Senior Fellow and Design Engineer at AMD, CTO of Dell’s Consumer and Displays groups, and Head of Computer Sciences for Landmark Graphics Corporation (Halliburton).  Bill is a systems architect with experience ranging from the smallest embedded devices to the highest performance cloud computing systems.  He is currently focused on integrating those two worlds.

Rhonda Dirvin

Director, IoT and Embedded | ARM

Rhonda Dirvin is Director, IoT and Embedded at ARM.  Since joining ARM in 2011, she has worked in several marketing and strategic roles, including digital marketing and alliances. She now drives ARM’s marketing strategy through the lens of IoT vertical markets.

Ms. Dirvin is an experienced electronics-industry veteran, who began her career with Motorola Semiconductor, where she worked for 17 years.  She started in the nascent data communications business where she took on increasing responsibility as it grew into a multi-billion dollar business.  She moved on to roles in sales, wireless marketing, and operations with P&L responsibility.  She holds a BS in electrical engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from the Red McCombs School of Business.

Dr. T. Russell Hsing

Chair Professor and an IEEE Life Fellow | National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan

Russell Hsing, Life Fellow of the IEEE and Fellow for the British Computer Society (BCS), is now Chair Professor of National Chiao Tung University, Guest Professor of Peking University, Adjunct Professors with the Arizona State University, Yonsei University, and Chinese University of Hong Kong. He also services as Board Advisor for four high-tech start-ups in the United States (DaTaMi; Smartiply; and IoT Eye, Inc.) and Taiwan. Dr. Hsing has been Academic Advisor for the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance since March 2014. Currently, his research efforts are concentrating on Wireless 5G, Internet of Things, Network Economy, and Technology Entrepreneurship.

From 1976 to 2012, Dr. Hsing was with the Applied Research Center in Bellcore/Telcordia/Ericsson as Director (1986-1995) and then Executive Director (1995-2012).  He accumulated rich R&D experience of 35 years through affiliations with Burroughs, Xerox, GTE Labs, Telco Systems Fiber Optics Corporation, and Bellcore/Telcordia/Ericssson. He led a research team to develop the world’s first working QAM-based ADSL system and the world’s first working DCT chip for video communication applications.  Dr. Hsing holds a B.Sc. from Taiwan, M.Sc. and Ph.D of Electrical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island.  His research and publications cover communication signal processing, multimedia communications, wireless technologies & sensors network, vehicular networks & telematics, video communications and VLSI implementations.

Dr. Xiliang Luo

Professor | ShanghaiTech University

Dr. Xiliang Luo is currently a professor with the school of Information Science and Technology,
ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. Prior to that, he was with Qualcomm Research,
San Diego, CA, USA.

Dr. Luo has been carrying out cutting-edge researches in next-generation information processing and communications. His current research interests include massive MIMO, dense networks, graph signal
processing, wifi-based behavior recognition, and fog computing. He has published over 50 research
papers in top journals and conferences. He is the co-inventor of over 70 US and international patents
and the majority of them have been adopted into current LTE and LTE-advanced standards.

Jason Shepherd

Senior Director, IoT CTO and Ecosystem | Dell

Jason leads CTO evangelism, solution planning and ecosystem development for the Dell Technologies IoT Solutions Division. His proven track record as a thought leader in the IoT market is evidenced through his leadership building up the award-winning Dell IoT partner program and establishing the vendor-neutral, open source EdgeX Foundry project to facilitate greater interoperability in IoT edge computing. In addition to serving as the governing board chair for the EdgeX project Jason and his team are active in Open Fog, Industrial Internet Consortium and other key industry efforts for IoT. Jason has spent his career at both Dell and tech startups in roles spanning CTO, engineering and marketing. He holds 14 granted and 11 pending US patents.

Dennis F. Strigl

Retired President and COO | Verizon Communications

Dennis F. Strigl was president and chief operating officer of Verizon Communications until his retirement in 2009. Dr. Strigl was responsible for the operations of Verizon’s network businesses — Verizon Wireless, Verizon Telecom and Verizon Business — as well as Verizon Services Operations, which provides financial, real estate and other functional services to all of the corporation’s operations. Dr. Strigl was president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless and executive vice president of Verizon Communications prior to being promoted to president of the entire corporation.

Dr. Strigl served in the communications industry for 41 years and is widely recognized as one of the most prominent architects of the wireless communications industry. Dr. Strigl is past chairman (1996-97) of the Board of Directors of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, the national industry association based in Washington, D.C.   He currently serves on the board of directors of PNC Financial Services Group and PNC Bank and Smartiply, Inc., and previously served on the boards of Nokia, Kodak, Anadigics and Tellabs.  He is the author of Managers, Can You Hear Me Now and is a lecturer on management leadership. Strigl has been a visiting professor at Princeton University since 2013. He holds an undergraduate degree in business administration and doctorate of humane letters from Canisius College and an MBA and doctorate of humane letters from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Steve Vandris

Director of IOT and 5G Solutions in the Datacenter Network Solutions Group | Intel

Steve Vandris is the Director for NFV Solutions Planning in the Datacenter Solutions Group of Intel Corporation, responsible for Intel’s NFV solution planning and delivery to enable Network Function Virtualization in communications networks for Service Providers and Enterprises. He was previously director for Standards and Industry Alliances in the SDN Division of the Datacenter Group at Intel responsible for managing Intel’s role in all Standard bodies and Industry Consortia for SDN/NFV, Director of Strategic Planning and Product Marketing at the Networking Division of LSI Corporation, and held various technical and business management positions at Agere Systems, Texas Instruments, Lucent Technologies and AT&T Bell Laboratories. He has 25 years of experience in the technology industry spanning telecommunications, networking and computing HW/SW system design, development and product management, and holds an Executive MBA from Rutgers University, Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and a B.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Sussex in the UK.

Dr. Yang Yang

Professor | Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT)

Dr. Yang Yang is currently a professor with Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, serving as the Director of CAS Key Laboratory of Wireless Sensor Network and Communication, and the Director of Shanghai Research Center for Wireless Communications (WiCO). He is also a Distinguished Adjunct Professor with the School of Information Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University. Prior to that, he has held faculty positions at University College London (UCL), Brunel University, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Yang is a member of the Chief Technical Committee of the National Science and Technology Major Project “New Generation Mobile Wireless Broadband Communication Networks” (2008-2020), which is funded by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China. In addition, he is on the Chief Technical Committee for the National 863 Hi-Tech R&D Program “5G System R&D Major Projects”, which is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of China. Since January 2017, he has been serving the OpenFog Consortium as the Director for Greater China Region.

Yang’s current research interests include wireless sensor networks, Internet of Things, Fog computing, Open 5G, and advanced wireless testbeds. He has published more than 150 papers and filed over 80 technical patents in wireless communications.

Makoto Yasuda

| Hitachi, Ltd.

Makoto is a corporate officer of Hitachi Ltd. and also has the title of senior technology evangelist of the Information & Communication Technology Business Division.

His main responsibilities are to promote Hitachi’s advanced and unique technologies to customers and industries and to support leading-edge projects with R&D department. For the past few years, he has focused on Big Data and its analytics. He also works extensively with the Global R&D Team and overseas departments.

Makoto has started his career in the IT industry at Andersen Consulting / Accenture after graduating from Waseda university. Before joining Hitachi in 2012, he worked in the software business as the president of Lotus Japan & AP, a marketing director of IBM Japan, and a partner business & marketing SVP of SAP Japan. Additionally, he worked in the network business for Cisco as a partner sales & marketing VP.

Ron Zahavi

Chief Strategist for IoT Standards | Microsoft

Ron Zahavi is the Chief Strategist for IoT standards at Microsoft, focused on the Internet of Things standards and consortia and leads Microsoft’s Worldwide IoT Architecture Community. Mr. Zahavi has over 30 years of experience in all aspects of technology management and solution delivery, 15 of those related to IoT solutions.  Prior to joining Microsoft, he ran his own consulting company and held positions as Chief Business Architect at Unisys Corp. and CTO/CIO, managing technology across several companies and performing due diligence of potential acquisitions. His breadth of experience includes work with startups, large companies, government, and private equity firms. Mr. Zahavi has also worked in several business domains, including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, energy, intelligence, and defense.

Zahavi is a member of the Object Management Group Board of Directors and has served on the OMG Architecture Board. He also represents Microsoft in the Industrial Internet Consortium. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Business Modeling: A Practical Guide to Realizing Business Value. Mr. Zahavi holds a BSEE from the University of Maryland and an MS in computer science from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Douglas N. Zuckerman

IEEE Life Fellow and Past President | IEEE Communications Society

An active IEEE volunteer for more than 30 years, Dr. Zuckerman is a past IEEE Division III (Communications Technology) Director, was 2008-2009 President of the IEEE Communications Society, and previously held leadership positions in conferences, publications and membership development. He received his B.S., M.S. and Eng.Sc.D degrees from Columbia University and is an IEEE Life Fellow.

Dr. Zuckerman’s professional experience, mainly at Bell Labs and Telcordia Technologies, USA, spans the operations, management and engineering of emerging communications technologies, networks and applications. His work heavily influenced early standards for management of telecommunications networks. Much of his professional life has been dedicated to IEEE activities. Dr. Zuckerman’s service resulted in the following honors: IEEE Third Millennium Medal, the IEEE Communications Society’s McLellan Award for meritorious service, its Conference Achievement Award, and the Salah Aidarous Memorial Award.  Though retired from Telcordia, he is also a consulting employee at Applied Communication Sciences (part of Vencore Labs).