Charles Boyd

Charlie is based in Silicon Valley focused on innovation for Verizon. He sits at the intersection of AI, Verizon’s 5G partner ecosystem, and next generation capabilities for Verizon clients. Verizon has had significant traction in private 5G in the professional sports vertical including many NFL stadiums, NHL stadiums, NBA arenas, and future engagements with FIFA World Cup 2026 and Chelsea FC in London. With private 5G as centerpiece, Verizon has a number of AI applications, video analytics, and facial recognition solutions elevating fan experience, employee experience, and operational efficiency. Verizon is seeing the next phase of private 5G adoption with the manufacturing vertical, hotel/hospitality, and retail / logistics distribution centers. Charlie came to Verizon originally through the acquisition of Totality, Inc, a leading managed services provider (whose primary competitor was Marc Andreesen’s LoudCloud). Charlie has continued to stay active with the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council and a number of Princeton founders, CEOs, and Princeton focused venture activity. Charlie received his MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, his AB from Princeton University Class of ’91, and completed a post graduate year at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

Mischa Dohler

Mischa Dohler is now VP Emerging Technologies at Ericsson Inc. in Silicon Valley, working on cutting-edge topics of 6G, Metaverse, XR, Quantum and Blockchain. He serves on the Spectrum Advisory Board of Ofcom, and served on the Technical Advisory Committee of the FCC. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET); and a Distinguished Member of Harvard Square Leaders Excellence. He is a serial entrepreneur with 5 companies; composer & pianist with 5 albums on Spotify/iTunes; and fluent in several languages. He has had ample coverage by national and international press and media, and is featured on Amazon Prime.

Ari Fitzgerald

Ari Fitzgerald provides strategic, legal, and policy advice on a wide range of communications and spectrum policy issues to some of the world’s largest and most dynamic communications network operators and equipment manufacturers, as well as a diverse assortment of industry trade associations and investors. He especially enjoys helping to bring new and innovative communications-related products and services to market. In recognition of his path-breaking contributions to the wireless industry, he is one of only three attorneys to have ever been inducted into the Wireless History Foundation’s Wireless Hall of Fame. Ari had a distinguished career in government before joining Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) as a partner in 2001. He was a legal advisor to former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, as well as deputy chief of the FCC’s International Bureau. He also worked as a legal advisor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he advised the White House, executive branch agencies, and the U.S. attorney general on constitutional and federal statutory interpretation matters. Ari currently serves on the board of directors of Crown Castle International, a large, publicly owned operator of towers and other communications infrastructure, and on the advisory board of several private technology companies and policy advocacy organizations. He also serves on the board of several nonprofit entities, including the Yale Law School Fund, secretary of the Multicultural Media and Telecommunications Council, and as president of the Duke Ellington Fund. Ari graduated with an A.B. from Harvard College, magna cum laude, in 1984; served as a Henry Luce Scholar in the Philippines from 1984 to 1985 and graduated with a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990.

Thierry Klein

Thierry E. Klein is the President of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia Bell Labs. His global multi-disciplinary team conducts fundamental and applied research focused on new Nokia value chains, business opportunities and ecosystems. Bell Labs Solutions Research pursues research and innovation into advanced technologies, architectures, systems and applications beyond Nokia’s current product and solutions portfolio, including research into advanced sensing technologies, AI-based knowledge systems and fundamental algorithms, autonomous software and data systems, and integrated solutions and experiences. Prior to his appointment as President of Bell Labs Solutions Research, Thierry was the Head of the Integrated Solutions and Experiences Research Lab at Nokia Bell Labs, leading a global research team dedicated to applied research, innovation and advanced technologies with the mission to design, develop and prototype massively disruptive solutions, systems and experiences for the next human-industrial revolution. The research domains span new wearable devices, cloud robotics and drones, image and data analytics, industrial process optimization and automation enabled by 5G networking and edge computing technologies. Previously, he was the Head of Innovation Management for Vertical Industries with a focus on the transportation, automotive and connected industries sectors. He also served as the Founding Vice-Chair of the Board of the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), a cross-industry association bringing together the telecommunications and automotive industries that he helped found and launch in September 2016. He was also the Program Leader for the Network Energy Research Program at Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent with the mission to conduct research towards the design, development and use of sustainable future communications and data networks. He served as the Chairman of the Technical Committee of GreenTouch, a global consortium dedicated to improve energy efficiency in networks by a factor 1000x compared to 2010 levels. He joined Bell Labs Research in Murray Hill, New Jersey in 2001 and his initial research was focused on next-generation wireless and wireline networks, network architectures, algorithms and protocols, network management, optimization and control. From 2006 to 2010 he served as the Founder and CTO of an internal start-up focused on wireless communications for emergency response and disaster recovery situations within Alcatel-Lucent Ventures. Thierry earned an MS in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Université de Nantes and the Ecole Centrale de Nantes in Nantes, France. He received a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He is an author on over 35 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications and an inventor on 36 patent applications. He is the recipient of a Bell Labs’ President Award and two Bell Labs Teamwork Awards. In 2010, he was voted “Technologist of the Year” at the Total Telecom World Vendor Awards and received the 2016 Industrial Innovation Award from the IEEE Communications Society. Thierry has dual US and Luxembourg citizenship and speaks four languages. He lives in Fanwood, New Jersey with his wife and son.

Ed Knapp

Ed Knapp is American Tower’s Chief Technology Officer. He is responsible for leading the company’s global innovation program, technology investments and strategy. Prior to joining American Tower in 2017, Mr. Knapp served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm. He joined Qualcomm after its acquisition of Flarion Technologies. Prior to that he served as the Chief Technology Officer of PacketVideo Corporation, co-founded NextWave Telecom, Inc. and served as its Chief Technology Officer, and was Executive Director of Technical Services for Bell Atlantic/NYNEX Mobile (Verizon Wireless). Mr. Knapp serves on the Board of Directors of AST SpaceMobile and the Center for Automotive Research, as well as the Rutgers University Industry Advisory Board. Mr. Knapp currently has five granted U.S. patents and one pending application. He earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University (NYU) in New York and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Stony Brook University.

Ozge Koymen

Ozge Koymen is a Senior Director of Technology at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. where he has been since 2006. He has led the 5G/6G millimeter-wave program within Qualcomm R&D since early 2015, from early conceptual evaluation to commercial deployment. His previous areas as a technical contributor includes Wireless Backhaul, Small Cells, LTE-D, LTE and UMB. Prior to Qualcomm, he was a member of Flarion Technologies developing a pioneering OFDMA cellular system,Flash-OFDM, during 2003-2006. His earlier work experience includes full-time and consulting work for Impinj, Inc (2000-2003) and TRW (1996-2000). He received the B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1996 and the M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1997 and 2003, respectively.

Udayan Mukherjee

Udayan Mukherjee is the Intel Senior Fellow and Chief Architect of Intel’s Network & communications Products. Udayan architected industry’s first fully virtualized 5G infrastructure Software on open architecture through FlexRAN & FlexCore which are being deployed worldwide. He also leads the worldwide team driving Intel’s NextG network technology & 3GPP/ORAN standards development. Udayan is also responsible for developing Silicon enhancements/SoC for networking and is currently working on developing network AI systems including domain specific LLM & RAG pipeline trained with network and enterprise data for deployment/automation as well as troubleshooting/root cause analysis. Udayan is also responsible for establishing new growth areas for Intel in the intelligent compute both in the enterprise as well as communications market segment, a role that includes developing technologies and architecture including augmenting classical networking algorithms with AI/ML models, enterprise and network specific LLM/RAG for network automation and RCA, software-based networking, as well as developing edge specific intellectual property including system design as well as time sensitive networking for industrial usages.. Udayan has been deeply involved with IEEE, ORAN alliance and TIP, has been a keynote and distinguished speaker multiple times @ IEEE Globecom, IEEE WCNC, IEEE 5G Silicon Valley summits, IEEE NFIC, CTIA, GSMA, Cable Labs, ORAN Summits as well as ITS, FCC and other Global as well as US government forums. A three times recipient of Intel achievement awards, Udayan also has more than a dozen granted patents and many pending in networking, edge as well as silicon enhancements for wireless, real-time processing & HA architecture. He has been associated with two startups and has double master’s degrees in computer science as well as industrial engineering.

Chris Ng

Dr. Chris Ng’s professional experience is in wireless communications and optimization systems. Dr. Ng is the author of more than 20 technical papers and multiple patents. His professional experience includes research and development positions with Bell Labs, Blue Danube Systems (acquired by NEC), and other technology companies. He was a Co-Chair on the Massive MIMO Working Group of the IEEE Future Networks Initiative. He received his bachelor’s degree in Applied Science from the University of Toronto, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Dr. Ng is currently an Engineering Director at JMA Wireless in New Jersey working on next-generation network optimization solutions.

Giampaolo Tardioli

Charlie Zhang

Charlie Zhang is an SVP at Samsung Research America, where he leads research, prototyping, and standardization for 5G/6G and other wireless systems. He is also a Corporate VP and head of the global 6G team at Samsung Research. He is currently serving as the ATIS North America Next-G Alliance Full Member Group Vice Chair. He was the Board Chair of the FiRa Consortium from May 2019 to May 2023, and the Vice Chairman of the 3GPP RAN1 working group from 2009 to 2013, where he led development of LTE and LTE-Advanced technologies. He worked for Nokia Research Center and Motorola Mobility for 6 years before joining Samsung in 2007. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr. Zhang is a Fellow of IEEE.