Ray Anderson
- CEO, Bango
Ray has over 30 years experience in starting, growing and selling businesses. He was named ‘Business Person of the Year’ in 2012. Ray co-founded Bango in 1999 after realizing that the convergence of the internet with the ubiquity of mobile phones could open up huge opportunities for content and service providers. Prior to Bango Ray established IXI which created the industry standard network GUI - X.desktop. IXI was an early leader in the creation of the web. It sponsored the first ever WWW conference at CERN and shipped the world’s first commercial web browser.
Mark Beach received his PhD for research addressing the application of Smart Antenna techniques to GPS from the University of Bristol in 1989, where he subsequently joined as a member of academic staff. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1996, Reader in 1998 and Professor in 2003. He was Head of the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering from 2006 to 2010, then spearheaded Bristol’s hosting of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Communications. He is the Co-Director of this centre. He leads research in the field of enabling technologies for the delivery of 5G and beyond wireless connectivity; which includes the recent award of an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership in the field of Secure Wireless Agile Networks (SWAN). Mark’s current research activities are delivered through the Communication Systems and Networks Group, forming a key component within Bristol’s Smart Internet Lab. He has over 30 years of physical layer wireless research embracing the application of Spread Spectrum technology for cellular systems, adaptive or smart antenna for capacity and range extension in wireless networks, MIMO aided connectivity for through-put enhancement, experimental evaluation and optimization of Massive MIMO, Millimetre Wave technologies as well as flexible RF technologies for SDR modems. With a strong industrially focused research portfolio, he is also the School Research Impact Director.
Pilgrim Beart FIET has led innovation for 25 years in Connected Product companies, each at a scale of 1-100m+ customers. His startups include antenova (smartphone antennas), AlertMe (Connected Home platform, powering British Gas Hive and Lowes’ Iris) and 1248 (scalable IoT services).
Dejan is a senior consultant who has advised a range of clients across both public and private sectors. His particular focus is development of open and shared connectivity and data infrastructure to support product development and service transformation within complex innovation ecosystems.
Dejan’s currently employed by the UK government's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) where he leads the technology advisory team within Future Networks Programme. Prior to this role he has successfully delivered Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator (DCIA) programme for DSIT/DCMS.
A firm believer in creating value through collaboration between public and private sectors and across technology layers, Dejan’s aspiration as a SIG Champion is to shine a spotlight on market innovation opportunities through CW’s uniquely rich network of experts and influencers.
Rory Cellan-Jones
- Technology Correspondent, BBC
Nick Chrissos
- Head of Innovation Technology, Cisco
Dan leads the Smart Cambridge Programme which was set up to explore how data, innovative technology and better connectivity can be used to transform the way people live, work and travel in the Greater Cambridge area and beyond. Local councils, technology businesses, university researchers and partner organisations are working together to find smart ways to tackle city challenges, such as transport and air quality.
David Cleevely CBE FREng, FIET is the Chairman of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. He is the founder and former Chairman of telecoms consultancy Analysys (acquired by Datatec International in 2004). In 1998, he co-founded the web based antibody company Abcam (ABC.L) with Jonathan Milner and was Chairman until November 2009. He has co-founded several other companies and is Chairman of two of them, including the award winning restaurant “Bocca di Lupo” and its gelateria subsidiary, Gelupo. He has been a director of two quoted companies. He has been active in promoting Cambridge. He was a prime mover behind Cambridge Network, co-founder of Cambridge Wireless, co-founder and Chairman of Cambridge Angels, Founding Director of the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge and Vice Chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Economic Commission. Other policy work has included membership of the IET Communications Policy Panel, the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and the Enterprise Committee and the National Engineering Policy Group at the Royal Academy of Engineering. From 2001 to 2008 he was a member of the Ministry of Defence Board overseeing information systems and services (DES-ISS, formerly the Defence Communications Services Agency). In addition to Raspberry Pi, his charitable work includes the Cambridge Science Centre, which he helped set up and fund in 2013 and continues as Chair. After being sponsored to study Cybernetics at Reading by Post Office Telecommunications, he joined their Long Range Studies Division. A PhD at Cambridge was then followed by the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the IET. He was elected a Fellow Commoner of Queens College, Cambridge in 2013 and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall in 2015. He was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List in 2013.
Naomi Climer
- President, IET
Paul Copping has had a career spanning software telecoms, transport and smart cities. He is currently Chief Technology Officer at Fawley Waterside, a new build "intelligent merchant city" on the Solent waterfront and backing on to the New Forest National Park. With 1500 homes and a large commercial and Innovation campus, this development has the opportunity to implement best practice in every phase of its design, build an operations.
David Crawford is Visiting Professor at University of Essex Colchester, and Emeritus Professor at Ravensbourne University London. David has worked for over 50 years across the telecoms/broadcast industries and UK academic institutions. His research interests are in new imaging techniques, applications for mixed reality technologies, and networks for multidimensional media. David facilitates and lectures in the UK on Degree Apprenticeship courses, promoting work-based learning curricula and collaborative industry-academia training.
David has worked in senior positions at BT, RE, Crown Castle and Harris Broadcast, and as a Director of a start-up company, TeamCast, in France. He has run his own technical consultancy company, and chairs and presents regularly at international events. David is a Member of the Royal Television Society, Fellow of SMPTE, Special-Interest-Group Champion for Cambridge Wireless on Content Production & Delivery, and Honorary Chairman of the Creative Science Foundation. He has previously served as a Council/Board Member of the Institute of Engineering & Technology (IET), the Conference Chair at IBC, and Executive Chair at the ‘mixed reality’ Community Interest Company, PlayLa.bZ.
Nathan Croft
- Acting Electronics Research Manager, Dyson
Iain Davidson
- Head of Channel Enablement, Arkessa
In a career spanning 20 years with BAE SYSTEMS, Motorola, Freescale & Arkessa, Iain has worked in a number of roles from hardware/firmware design, systems integration, IoT Business Development and Marketing. He is on the lookout for compelling new IoT devices/applications and especially a creative business model approach which can simplify adoption and scale. Currently, Iain runs Marketing at Arkessa.
Peter Davies
- Director, Thales
David Dobson
- Snr Industry Advisor RHCG, Intel
Mischa Dohler
- Chief Architect, Ericsson
He was Professor in Wireless Communications at King’s College London, driving cross-disciplinary research and innovation in technology, sciences and arts. 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 sits on the Spectrum Advisory Board of Ofcom, and acts as policy advisor on issues related to digital, skills and education. He has had ample coverage by national and international press and media. He is featured on Amazon Prime.
He is a frequent keynote, panel and tutorial speaker, and has received numerous awards. He has pioneered several research fields, contributed to numerous wireless broadband, IoT/M2M and cyber security standards, holds a dozen patents, organized and chaired numerous conferences, was the Editor-in-Chief of two journals, has more than 300 highly-cited publications, and authored several books. He is a Top-1% Cited Scientist across all science fields globally.
He was Professor at King’s from 2013-2021, and the Director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research from 2014-2018. He is the Cofounder of the Smart Cities pioneering company Worldsensing, where he was the CTO from 2008-2014. He also worked as a Senior Researcher at Orange/France Telecom from 2005-2008.
Steve Feast
Steve Feast (EAHSN)
Simon joined Real Wireless in January 2016 as Chief Technology Officer, taking overall technical and innovation strategy responsibility across the company. He is a member of the UK5G AB, co-chair of the International WG, and member of the Climate WG. His long-standing association with the UK innovation eco-system through roles such as Director of mVCE and the Innovate-UK ICT-KTN brings a wealth of practical knowledge on open innovation to accelerate product and services delivery. Simon spent his formative years in telecoms infrastructure systems and product development. In NEC Corporation he played a key role in the formation of Joint Ventures for development of 3G and 4G products and established a core team that developed the first-generation of technology for 4G systems culminating in a Steering Board position in the LTE SAE Trials Initiative (LSTI). In recent times he has directed projects on future cities, the application 5G and IoT in industry verticals with an event horizon towards 2030. His long participation in Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) and then directing Real Wireless engagement in H2020 and the 2016 NIC study on Future Comms infrastructure brings great foresight on a range of architectural evolutions underway in 5G architectures, in particular for Open RAN and Diversification. He is a CW Small Cell SIG Champion, and in February 2022 the Small Cell Forum (SCF) appointed Simon as their Chief Strategy Officer, drawing on 25 years direct industry experience and work as an advisor to governments, regulators and big business.
Neil Garner
- Founder, Thyngs
Neil Garner is the founder and CEO of Thyngs, a mobile technology platform that turns any physical object into an instant point of sale. The firm provides a simple, secure and affordable way for any business to take advantage of the growth in mobile payments, with clients in the charity, entertainment and heritage sectors. Neil was previously founder and CEO of Proxama plc, where he pioneered mobile proximity marketing and mobile contactless payments (now commonly known as Apple/Android Pay) for high profile global brands. A passionate campaigner for digital entrepreneurship, Neil is also a co-founder of Norwich-based technology hub Whitespace, now part of the Barclays Eagle Lab network. When he needs to unwind from technology, Neil enjoys spending time with his family in the beautiful Norfolk countryside, playing the guitar, and strategy games.
Raj has over 20 years of experience in short range and wireless communications technology R&D, business development and marketing. Raj was part of initial IEEE 802.11 team to define first WLAN standard in 1996 – a technology which has now shipped over 5bn units. Raj also helped pioneer the first 3G data transmissions working with Motorola and others to demonstrate one of the first video calls at the 3GSM show in 1998 – many years before 3G licences were awarded. He has also been awarded a number of patents including short range wireless technologies. Raj was a founder member of startup UbiNetics (1999), which successfully exited in 2005 for over $120m USD. As part of that deal, Raj joined CSR and ultimately took the role of VP Marketing where he was part of the team that acquired SiRF Technologies for $136m (2009) to add GPS technology to CSR portfolio. More recently in 2012, he helped sell CSR’s handset business to Samsung in a deal worth $310m for 310 staff to form the SCSC division. As part of that deal, Raj took up the role of VP Marketing responsible for defining future wireless products. In 2014, Raj was promoted to head up the SCSC division leading the silicon and software development for Samsung’s connectivity solutions.
Tom Griffiths
- Head of Broadcast Technology, ITV
John Haine has spent his career in the electronics and communications industry, working for large corporations and with four Cambridge start-ups. His technical background includes R&D in radio circuitry and microwave circuit theory; and the design of novel radio systems for cordless telephony, mobile data, fixed wireless access and IoT communications. He has led standardisation activities in mobile data and FWA in ETSI, and contributed to WiMax in IEEE. At various times he has been involved in and led fund-raising and M&A activities. In 1999 he joined TTP Communications working on research, technology strategy and M&A; and after the company’s acquisition by Motorola became Director of Technology Strategy in Motorola Mobile Devices. After leaving Motorola he was CTO Enterprise Systems with ip.access, a manufacturer of GSM picocells and 3G femtocells. In early 2010 he joined Cognovo, which was acquired by u-blox AG in 2012. He led u-blox' involvement in 3GPP NB-IoT standardisation and the company's initial development of the first modules for trials and demonstrations. Now retired from u-blox he is an Honorary Professor in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Bristol University, where he chairs the SWAN Prosperity Partnership Project external advisory board . He was founder chair and is Board Member Emeritus of the IoT Security Foundation. He served on the CW Board chaired the Editorial Board of the CW Journal. John has a first degree from Birmingham (1971) and a PhD from Leeds (1977) universities, and is a Life Member of the IEEE.
David Harrison
- Ofcom
David is Director of Spectrum Technology in Ofcom. At Ofcom he has led technical research and supporting Ofcom policy development across a wide range of topics including: the internet of things, fixed and mobile availability and performance, unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum, future use of UHF spectrum, network neutrality and next generation broadband access. Before joining Ofcom, David worked for the Independent Television Commission where he held the position of Deputy Director of Technology, and before that he led the high frequency research and development activities in Thomson Multimedia based in Rennes. David holds a degree and PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Robert Harwood
- Industry Director, Ansys UK
David Hill
- Business Development Director, Open Energi
For the past thirty years Nick has been closely involved with short range wireless and communications, designing technology that helps to bring mobility to products, particularly in the areas of telematics, M2M, IoT, wearables, smart energy and mobile health. He is closely involved with the Bluetooth SIG, the Continua Alliance and other medical and wireless standards bodies. He is the author of 'The Essentials of Short Range Wireless' - a book attempting to explain the application of wireless technology to product developers.
Heartfelt Technologies develops remote patient monitoring equipment (Digital Health / Telehealth / Telemedicine) for the ongoing evaluation and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
Magdalene Kron
- Head of Rise London and VP Open Innovation, Barclays
Steve Leonard
- Executive Deputy Chairman, IDA
Sinead Lynch
- Senior Associate, CMS
Geoff McCormick
Geoff has worked as a business consultant in the design industry for over 10 years. In that time he has worked with some of the world's most famous and successful designers, where his role was to help designers, companies and brands to try and maximise the commercial effectiveness of design. His experience covers every populated continent and a diverse range of sectors, including developing a mobile petrol retail station, an interior design system for VIP aircraft, hydrogen powered vehicles, packaging strategies for FMCG brands and innovation programmes utilising Asian sourcing. It is this breadth of experience that he values most. Common across all of his clients and projects is the desire to create truly unique experiences that occupy a space in peoples' hearts and minds.
Anthony Newstead
- Global Group Director for Emerging Technologies and Strategic Innovation, The Coca-Cola Company
Jane Rumble
- Head of Media Research and Market Intelligence, Ofcom
Moray Rumney received a BSc in EE from Heriot-Watt University in 1984. He joined Hewlett-Packard that year and remained with the company through the transition to Agilent Technologies in 1999 and Keysight Technologies in 2015. Moray joined ETSI in 1991 and 3GPP in 1999 where he participated in the development of cellular communications standards and conformance test methods. His recent work has focused on radiated test methods for mobile phones. He was editor and major contributor to Agilent’s book “LTE and the Evolution to 4G Wireless”. From 2018 to 2021 Moray represented Keysight at 3GPP RAN plenary who oversee the development of the 5G radio standards. His recent interests include expert witness work, engineering consulting services, and the safety debate around cellular technology including the evolution of test methods to validate that base stations and mobile phones comply with safety regulations.
David Sharp
- Head of Engineering - Autonomous Mobility, Ocado Technology
David Sharp leads Ocado's "Technology 10x" multidisciplinary innovation team that works on devising and developing disruptive technologies that can make transformational improvements to Ocado. The "10x" is about seeking to make a "ten times" difference to something rather than a 10% incremental improvement. The team works on creating new automation, interaction, robotic and machine learning systems that push the state of the art in e-commerce and logistics. The team is home to specialists in artificial intelligence, machine learning, software, electronics, mechanics and robotics. David joined Ocado in 2013 to help innovate the development of Ocado's robotic warehouses and then went on to create and grow the 10x innovation team. Prior to joining Ocado, David worked as a technology consultant in Cambridge and London, creating new technologies and advising businesses, investors and lawyers on technology-related strategies, projects and ventures.
David was previously a Lecturer in Computing at Imperial College, London, having graduated from Imperial with a PhD in Computing and MBA in New Ventures. He is a scholar of King's College Cambridge, where he studied Engineering (Electrical Sciences Tripos).
Ian Simmons
- Vice President Business Development, Magna International
Ian Simmons has served as Vice President Business Development, Corporate Engineering and R&D since 2012. Simmons is responsible for identifying and developing new business opportunities with start-ups, universities, venture capital companies and entrepreneurs. As a result of his work in the last 12-15 months, Magna has entered into partnerships with more than 15 companies and invested over $90 million.
Simmons joined Magna in 2003 as Executive Director Sales and Program Management for Magna Steyr North America. In 2008 he was promoted to General Manager, Magna Steyr North America and in 2010 this role was expanded to President of Magna Steyr North America.
Simmons, who has worked in the automotive industry for more than 35 years, began his career in 1976 with student training at the Ford Motor Company in the U.K. Upon leaving Ford in 1982 he undertook engineering assignments in Europe with Volkswagen and DAF Trucks.
In 1990 Simmons held the position of Manager of Business Development for Hawtal Whiting Plc. in the U.K., where he was responsible for sales activities throughout Europe. In 1993 he accepted a transfer to the company’s U.S. operation to become Vice President of Sales. In 1995 Simmons became Vice President of Operations for the Hawtal Whiting technical center in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
Simmons returned to the U.K. in 1997 as Director of Business Development for TWR Ltd. supporting TWR Group sales and operational tasks for the technical services division. He subsequently returned to the U.S. in 1999 and joined Porsche Engineering Services as Head of Sales in 2000. Simmons holds dual U.S. / U.K. citizenship.
Simmons has been a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers for over 20 years.
Charles Sturman
- CEO, TechWorks
As CEO at TechWorks, Charles is driving collaboration between Deep Tech and Semiconductor companies, Academia and Government in order to promote the sector and grow business opportunities for UK companies.
Previously, Charles was responsible for International Business & Marketing at HiSilicon (Huawei’s chipset business) based in Cambridge UK, with responsibility for product strategy, go-to-market and business development in IoT, edge and smart devices fields. Prior to this he led u-blox’ activities in the fast moving consumer IoT segment (wearables, smart-home and entertainment) following the acquisition of the ARM Software Radio spin-out Cognovo, where we was founder and executive VP Sales & Marketing. Charles has held various positions in system design, business development and product marketing within Acorn Computers, TTPCom, Motorola and ARM.
Rahim Tafazolli, Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, IET, WWRF and Regius Professor of Electronic Engineering, Professor of Mobile and Satellite Communications, Founder and Director of 5GIC, 6GIC and ICS (Institute for Communication Systems) at the University of Surrey. He has over 30 years of experience in digital communications, research and teaching. He has authored and co-authored more than 1000 research publications and is regularly invited to deliver keynote talks and distinguished lectures to international conferences and workshops. He was advisor to the Mayor of London (Boris Johnson) on London 2050 Infrastructure.
Francis White
- EU General Manager & NHS Innovation Fellow, Alivecor
David Wong
- Senior Technology & Innovation Manager, SMMT
Chris Wright (Moixa Group)
Graeme Wright
- IoT Director, Fujitsu UK
Graeme Wright is Chief Technology Officer for the manufacturing, utilities and services sectors within Fujitsu having joined in 2001 from the management consulting division of PwC. Highly innovative, Graeme is leading the development of Fujitsu's offerings and business growth strategy for the sector. With many years of experience in the IT industry, Graeme combines his software and engineering heritage with keen business skills by working in the area of emerging technologies and specifically how technologies can be adopted by industry to deliver positive business outcomes by understanding the impact they have on people and society.
