MWC23 Las Vegas On-Demand – 5G Futures Summit Session 3

Sameer Vuyyuru is currently the Head of WW Business Development for Communication Service Providers at Amazon Web Services (AWS). His team works with all of the leading players in the Telco ecosystem in the co-pursuit of transforming the way networks and network services are built and monetized in the future.

Sameer is a Customer Obsessed veteran of the Telecommunications Industry. He prides him on delivering Value through Innovation to the Telecommunications Ecosystem Worldwide. Sameer was most recently the Co-Founder and CEO of Wayz.ai, a Shanghai based AI start-up delivering Predictive Network Services for Self-Organizing Networks. Prior accomplishments in the Telco space include helping launch the first ever 40G and 100G optical transport networks, LoRa (The largest IoT Network as a Service) and numerous other innovations starting from GPRS baseband and driving through the generational upgrades all the way to 5G.

His past roles include SVP/GM at Comtech where he ran the E-911 and Messaging Product lines. His team expanded the market to 86 different Telcos WW through innovating on Network Function virtualization, on AWS for ease of deployment and agility. Prior to that he was SVP/GM at Semtech for the Advanced Communications group. Sameer started his career with Texas Instruments working on system level solutions for 2G Baseband in their Mobile Computing Architecture Labs. Sameer holds an MSEE in Digital Signal Processing from Texas Tech University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

Manish is a well-respected industry leader with over 25 years of experience and specializes in Wireless Networks. Manish is currently the CTO of Telecom Systems Business at Dell. Before joining Dell, Manish was at Meta, fka Facebook, where he headed the Wireless Ecosystems Program for Open RAN and Open Core Networks; he was heavily involved with O-RAN Alliance and TIP (Telecom Infra Project). For three consecutive years, he also served on the Board of Small Cell Forum. Manish is a Thought Leader with good balance of technology depth and business acumen.

Prior to Meta, Manish was VP of Network Services at Tech Mahindra. And prior to that Manish served as Radisys’ CTO where he spearheaded the company’s strategic initiatives in SDN, NFV and VoLTE (Voice-over-LTE). Prior to Radisys, Manish was the VP of Product Management at Continuous Computing, where he led the startup’s spectacular growth in Small Cells and DPI. During the course of his career Manish held various Management and Architect positions at Intel, Trillium Digital Systems and C-DOT.

Manish holds an MS degree from I.I.Sc. Bangalore.

Manish routinely features as a keynote speaker at leading industry events. He is a thoughtful writer with copious published papers and articles. Manish holds multiple patents in fields of computing and communications.

Sadayuki Abeta is global head of open RAN solutions and OREX evangelist in NTT DOCOMO for creating open RAN ecosystem globally, and shaping them to meet customer and service provider needs.

He has been working for research, standardization and development of the UMTS/W-CDMA, HPSA, LTE, LTE-Advanced and 5G. From 2005 to 2009, he was a vice chairman of 3GPP TSG-RAN WG1 and rapporteur of LTE and LTE-Advanced. He is an O-RAN executive committee member. From 2018-2022, he was a General Manager of the Radio Access Network Development Department, which is responsible for development of LTE, 5G, X-haul and satellite communications.

Ganesh heads Radisys’ integrated solutions across wireless, wireline and media processing domains. Named in 2020 as the recipient of the Small Cell Forum Chair’s Award, he leads 4G and 5G wireless product development, drives collaboration with industry partners and performs key leadership roles in 5G standardization and Open RAN ecosystem partnerships at Radisys. He also represents Radisys in industry forums such as the O-RAN Alliance, Small Cell Forum and TIP. Prior to joining Radisys, Ganesh held management and engineering roles at Continuous Computing and Infosys. Ganesh holds an M.E, Control Systems, from the PSG College of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli.

Geoff Hollingworth is CMO of Rakuten Symphony, which has proven Open RAN and fully virtualized cloud native networks are possible at scale in high density coverage areas.

A software engineer by birth, Geoff was fortunate to be involved in both mobile and the internet as they have started and grown. Geoff first worked at CERN as Tim Berners Lee invented the internet and then joined Ericsson in 1991 as 2G was starting.

Throughout his journey in telecom and cloud, he’s been a software engineer and led research and development, business development, network rollouts, consulting, marketing campaigns and strategic communications for his teams.

Starting in 2012, Geoff was embedded in AT&T, helping to lead Silicon Valley innovation initiatives. Before this, he delivered the world’s first live global mobile sports channel with the Volvo Ocean Race Round the World race. Geoff also served as CMO for MobiledgeX, a startup founded by Deutsche Telekom focusing on the mobile edge computing space.

After three decades of telco experience (1G to 5G) playing leadership roles at various mobile communications pioneers, David currently leads Ecosystem Development at TIP and is based in New York City.

Prior to TIP, David’s RAN-related career highlights included:

• Network Infrastructure Ecosystems Lead at Meta/Facebook
• Co-founder and CMO at purpose-driven Reach Mobile (MVNO)
• Founder and GM/CEO at Bells Labs Ventures
• VP Product & Marketing at Airvana (Ericsson/Commscope)
• Board Member & Economic Analysis Lead at Small Cell Forum
• VP Product & Marketing at Bytemobile (Citrix)
• VP Product & Marketing at ArrayComm

David holds a Master of Engineering and MBA from Cornell University as well as a BS in Applied Physics from the University of California, Davis.

Lalit Kashyap is the VP and Head of Communications, Media and Info services sectors, Americas at Wipro. In this role he serves as an industry thought leader and consultant helping customers reimagine and realize their ambitions of being nimble and attain customer-oriented growth. Lalit has over 2 decades of Indepth experience working with leading organizations helping them establish and achieve their growth vision in areas of go to market strategy, platform and product initiatives and digital transformation.

Throughout his stint at Wipro Lalit has been in leadership role interacting with industry stalwarts, influencing customers, analysts, advisors, and building high-performance teams.

Lourdes Charles is the Global Leader for 5G and Edge and the head of the Connectivity Practice in Wipro Engineering. Lourdes leads an organization responsible for building cutting-edge solutions enabling clients across multiple business sectors to leverage 5G to build a competitive edge and achieve their connectivity ambitions.

Lourdes is a technology leader with more than 30 years of experience operationalizing and managing market leading products, offers and organizations. Lourdes has a wealth of business knowledge of the telecommunication industry from IP Telephony, MPLS VPN, Security, Multi-access Edge Computing and Private Wireless Network.  She began her career in the nuclear power industry as an electrical power engineer in 1992 at First Energy Solutions, then worked at Verizon as a circuit design engineer and further broadened her technology and business expertise at Lumen, Fusion Connect.  Lourdes spent 15 years at AT&T Business leading organizations responsible for developing and managing mobility business solutions.

Lourdes earned a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in Electrical Engineering from Pratt Institute and completed her graduate studies in business administration at Long Island University in New York.