Roy Chua is Founder and Principal at AvidThink, an independent research and advisory service formed in 2018 out of SDxCentral's research group. Prior to co-founding SDxCentral and running its research and product teams, Roy was a management consultant working with both Fortune 500 and startup technology companies on go-to-market and product consulting.   As an early proponent of the software-defined infrastructure movement, Roy is a frequent speaker at technology events in the telco and cloud space and a regular contributor to leading online publications. A graduate of UC Berkeley's electrical engineering and computer science program and MIT's Sloan School of Business, Roy has 20+ years of experience in telco and enterprise cloud computing, networking and security, including founding several Silicon Valley startups.

Zhenbin Li is in charge of the research and standard promotion work of IP protocols. Before that he had been the Chief IP/MPLS Service Architect and the Chief Architect of SDN controller to be responsible for the service and architecture design of IP software platform and SDN controller.   Zhenbin Li and his team are taking an active part in the IP/MPLS/SDN standardization work in IETF and promote the innovation of SR, BGP/VPN, PCE, SBI/NBI, Telemetry, etc.

Kireeti Kompella started off in the Routing area in 1998 working in Traffic Engineering. He moved on to MPLS and MPLS applications (VPNs, VPWS/VPLS, Entropy Labels, GMPLS, Seamless MPLS and more TE as a sample).  In 2015, he introduced the notion of Self-Driving Networks, a vision of networks that run themselves – provisioning, optimizing, reacting to changing network conditions, and maintaining a high level of service both within the network as well as for its customers.  He presently works on "Services as Code" – a fully customizable platform for service orchestration. Kireeti has been at Juniper for nearly 28 years (with a short break at Contrail Systems) and has held multiple positions there. He is currently SVP and Chief Engineer of the WAN BU.  He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, as well as Master's and Bachelor's degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Michael is Vice President and CTO of the Cisco Networking Group leading technical direction, architectural transition, solution architecture and roadmap planning for Cisco’s SP networking portfolio. He drives Cisco’s leadership position in core, edge, aggregation and access routing, mobility, cable, optics and optical networking and automation software solutions in collaboration with partners, customers, internal cross-functional leaders and the industry in reinventing the mass-scale networks of the future.  Prior to rejoining Cisco in February 2018, Michael was co-founder and CTO of Skyport Systems, developing cloud managed, on premise, virtualized compute platforms with security, ease of use, and always-on analytics built in. Before Skyport, Michael served as engineering CTO at Juniper Networks, leading new architectures, embedded software evolution and silicon roadmap development across the router, switch and Wi-Fi portfolios.   Michael has held many senior technical leadership roles at both Cisco and Juniper and was a key contributor to many successful product lines and technology including C7200, C12000, M40, T640, JUNOS, ASR1K and IOS-XE. Michael holds CS and Math degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, is a named inventor on many networking related patents, is a frequent speaker at industry events, and often shares his thoughts through

Mr. Wim Henderickx is the CTO of the IP Division at Nokia, based in Belgium. He is active across various domains, including service providers, enterprise networks, and hyperscalers.   With over 30 years of experience in the communications and networking industry, Mr. Henderickx is a frequent speaker at technical conferences worldwide. He is actively involved in standards development organizations and contributes to multiple open-source projects.   He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering (Data Communications) and a Master’s degree in Economics. Mr. Henderickx is also a Bell Labs Fellow.

Michel is a Product Line Manager at the Network Infrastructure business group for the EMEA region and is based in the Netherlands. He is leading the Datacenter product management team, in addition his other focus is programmability and virtualization within the 7x50 product line and Nokia SR OS router software.  He has over 25 years of experience in the networking industry with roles varying from network engineer to designer/architect.

John McKinnon currently serves as Vice President of Software Engineering for the Navigator Network Control Suite at Ciena. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the design, development, verification, and support of the complete portfolio of Ciena’s SDN network management software solutions, intelligent applications, and network design tools.   John has held various senior software design, product management, and business development positions in his 40 years tenure at Standard Telecommunications plc, Bell-Northern Research, Nortel Networks and now Ciena. This included software leadership roles in Transmission Networks, Optical Networks, Data Networks and eBusiness product groups covering all aspects of element, network, service management tools and applications.   John holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from University College London, UK and is a Chartered Engineer with the IEE.

Kevin Wang is a Distinguished Engineer at Juniper Networks, working in the BGP and MPLS areas for 16 years. His major innovations include BGP rib-sharding, FIB Compression, BGP Self-diagnostics, AI/ML fabric Global Load Balancing, and BGP Deterministic Path Forwarding. He actively participates in the IETF and is a coauthor of RFC-9107 as well as a few Global Load Balancing related Internet drafts.   Before joining Juniper in 2008, he worked for Airvana, Axiowave Networks, Cisco, in the areas of 3G Wireless, IP/MPLS protocols, and Content Delivery.

Jiri is a Principal Engineer at Cisco with 15+ years experience and deep technical expertise driving new architecture and innovations in networking through career path from post-sales, to sales, to technical marketing.  His main focus is architecture and innovation in AI front- and back-end networks, open networking with SONiC, as well as continuous focus on BGP based Overlay Services solution (IP, Ethernet) such as EVPN and programmable transport based on IP (SRv6, VXLAN) or MPLS. Jiri is an advisor and architect for large scale end-to-end Service Provider, Data Center, and Cloud networks globally.  Jiri is regularly recognized as a top speaker at technical conferences.

Javier Antich has been in the Networking Industry for 25 years. He is currently Principal Product Management Engineer in the Provider Connectivity group at Cisco, where he is connecting the dots between networking, automation, and AI.   He has been researching the Art of the possible with LLMs in Networking with the Industry's first autonomous network troubleshooting agent (Anetta.ai). Javier has extensive experience in machine learning, analytics, network observability, network automation, and Telco-grade networking. Javier is also an accomplished author of the best-selling book “Machine Learning for Network and Cloud Engineers”.  He holds a BS Degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the ETSIT at the Polytechnic University in Valencia, an Executive MBA at the IE Business School, and a Data Science and Deep Learning master’s degree from the Madrid Institute of IoT.

Carsten Rossenhövel is Managing Director and Co-Founder of EANTC AG (European Advanced Networking Test Center). Based in Berlin, Germany, EANTC is a test lab specializing in telecommunication technologies and offers vendor-neutral network testing services for manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise customers.   In this role, Carsten has over 20 years of experience in telecommunication networks testing and is responsible for EANTC's business development and marketing. His technical areas of expertise include Network Functions Virtualization and transport network solutions.

Bill Kaufmann has been working with global Communication Service Providers for over 20 years as a Product Management Director for IP/MPLS routing hardware, SDN orchestration platforms, and network management and assurance systems.   He currently leads the network assurance and analytics platform management at the Blue Planet division of Ciena.

Qin Wu currently serves on the IAB and is one of the organizers of the NEMOPS workshop. He has many years’ experience working in the IETF contributing to the development of YANG models and to the refinement of YANG.  He currently focuses on driving digital twin networking and Network and Application collaboration and chairs SCONE Working group in IETF WIT area. In addition, he also helps form IVY, GREEN, NMOPS WGs,etc in IETF OPS area and has chaired several IETF working groups intended to support the aims and ambitions of network operators, and is a member of the IETF’s Operations Directorate.

Dr. Pietro Cassarà is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Information Science and Technology (ISTI) of the National Research Council (CNR). His research focuses on analyzing and designing AI-based control and management systems for telecommunications networks. In this field, he leads the AI for Networking group and the joint ISTI-Huawei laboratory at the ISTI.   Dr. Cassarà has collaborated with international institutions such as NATO's Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) as a temporary research staff member, working on intelligent routing protocols for underwater wireless networks. He has also coordinated project activities in national and European projects on AI-driven network management and has led Proof of Concept (PoC) initiatives within ETSI, exploring the application of the SRv6 protocol alongside AI-based strategies for IPRAN management.   Beyond his research activities, Dr. Cassarà serves as an editor for journals and actively contributes to the organization of conferences, as well as teaching activities in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of Pisa.

Michel is a Product Line Manager at the Network Infrastructure business group for the EMEA region and is based in the Netherlands. He is leading the Datacenter product management team, in addition his other focus is programmability and virtualization within the 7x50 product line and Nokia SR OS router software.  He has over 25 years of experience in the networking industry with roles varying from network engineer to designer/architect.

Carsten Rossenhövel is Managing Director and Co-Founder of EANTC AG (European Advanced Networking Test Center). Based in Berlin, Germany, EANTC is a test lab specializing in telecommunication technologies and offers vendor-neutral network testing services for manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise customers.   In this role, Carsten has over 20 years of experience in telecommunication networks testing and is responsible for EANTC's business development and marketing. His technical areas of expertise include Network Functions Virtualization and transport network solutions.

Mehmet Durmus has been serving as the Associate Director of Turkcell IP/MPLS Core and Data Center Networks since 2023. In this role, He is responsible for the Strategic Investment Planning and Network Design of Turkcell's IP Backbone, Backhaul, and Data Center Networks, ensuring they are optimized for performance, scalability, and future technologies

Juan brings over 20 years of experience in the networking industry providing technical leadership for network innovation projects and focusing on tier-1 service providers across Europe and Latin America.   With more than 16 years at Telefonica, Juan focused his work on end-to-end network architectures with an emphasis on network innovation and virtualization. By 2018, Telefonica created their ‘Future Networks Lab’ where Juan evaluated many different vendors for integrating into a disaggregated network infrastructure. Currently, at DriveNets, Juan serves as a Senior Sales Engineer and is focused on deploying DriveNets innovative networking technology.

Dr. Xipeng Xiao has been with Huawei Datacom since 2006. He is currently head of European Datacom SID, and previously, Chief Engineer of the Network Solution Sales. In these roles, he works extensively with European operators.  Prior to Huawei, he was Director of Product Management at Riverstone Networks (now part of Nokia) and Redback Networks (part of Ericsson) in Santa Clara USA. He was Senior Manager at Global Crossing where he deployed and managed the MPLS network. Dr. Xiao is author of 4 RFCs and 1 book. Dr. Xiao is co-chair of IETF v6ops (IPv6 Operations) WG. He also serves as steering committee member of the MPLS World Congress.

Krzysztof Grzegorz Szarkowicz is a Solution Architect at Juniper Networks, concentrating on mobile transport solutions, and has been working with the networking industry 20+ years, delivering projects at many operators world-wide.   Before joining Juniper Networks in 2007, he worked with Hewlett Packard Labs, Telia Research, Ericsson, and Cisco. During that time he gained valuable hands-on experience at various aspects of networking, culminating in gaining CCIE-SP and JNCIE-SP certifications.   He is co-author of the O’Reilly book “MPLS in the SDN Era", by Antonio Sánchez-Monge and Krzysztof Grzegorz Szarkowicz, as well as “Day One: Configuring Segment Routing with Junos” by Julian Lucek and Krzysztof Grzegorz Szarkowicz. At present, he is active contributing member of O-RAN WG9 (Open X-haul Transport) co-authoring WG9's architectural documents.

Jan Straznicky has over 25 years of experience in networking & telecommunications and is currently the Senior Director of Product Line Management at Ciena. In this role, he leads the team defining Ciena’s IP Networking Software Strategy and product roadmaps for Ciena’s IP Network Operating System (SAOS 10.x), Subscriber Management/BNG (Benu Acquisition) and Enterprise Cloud Edge (Vyatta Acquisition). Ciena’s SAOS 10.x IP Network Operating System runs across the entire portfolio of Routing platforms.   Prior to joining Ciena, Jan spent 16 years with Nokia (via Alcatel-Lucent) in various roles spanning Customer Engineering Support, Solutions Engineering and Consulting Engineering. His final role was Senior Director of Consulting Engineer in the IP Business Division responsible for the team driving Technical Business Development for Nokia’s IP products across the North American Mobile Operator segment. Jan’s has spent his career applying the broad concepts of IP networking to build deployable and successful end-to-end solutions for customers.   Jan has a B.Eng from Carleton University and an MBA from Queen’s University.

Ka Zhang is now SR Protocol Technology Senior Expert and has 17+ years research and development work in MPLS and SRv6 at Huawei.   She has designed and developed the IPv6 Enhance technology such as SRv6 Policy, SRv6 Compression, Network Slicing etc. and is familiar with the implementation and deployment of Srv6. She is author of 5 IETF drafts.

Clarence Filsfils, a Cisco Systems Fellow, has a 20-year expertise leading innovation, productization, marketing and deployment for Cisco Systems. Trusted and respected by key decision makers across major WEB/OTT, SP’s and large Enterprises, Clarence enjoys working with these operators to listen to their needs and requirements, and then get things done from product design to deployment.   He invented the Segment Routing Technology (over 40 patents) and is leading its productization, marketing and deployment at record execution speed. For this contribution, he received the Pioneer Award - Cisco's most prestigious award honoring innovative engineering. The award celebrates engineering contribution that brings growth in new markets, redefines current markets, and provides game-changing improvements to engineering productivity. Previously, Clarence invented and led the Fast Routing Convergence Technology (over 30 patents) and was the lead designer for Cisco System’s QoS (20 patents) and large-scale IP/MPLS deployments.   Clarence is a regular speaker at leading industry conferences. He holds over 130 patents and is a prolific writer, either in academic circle (Sigcomm 2015), or standard (8 RFC’s, 20 drafts on standard’s track) or books. Clarence holds a Masters in Management from Solvay Business School and a Masters of Engineering in Computer Science from the University of Liege.

Rolf Schmid is a Senior System Architect for IP Transport Networks at Swisscom. In the past 25 years of his Swisscom career, Rolf has been involved in the design and implementation of various generations of Service Provider networks and services.  Today, Rolf is leading the network architecture team of the TITAN project, Swisscom's ambitious initiative to build a converged, state-of-the-art, greenfield SRv6 network in Switzerland.

Since 1999, he has advanced network design using MPLS while developing IP-VPN, distributed IX, and multicast services. Since 2008, his work has focused on IPv4/IPv6 coexistence, later contributing to the MAP standardization—achieving IETF standardization in 2015 and advancing IPv6 adoption in Japan.  Since 2016, he has researched SRv6 for 5G mobile backhaul, culminating in its IETF standardization in 2020. In 2021, he proposed the SRv6 MUP architecture to enhance 5G user plane efficiency, furthering his work with SoftBank 5G.   He has served as SoftBank Technical Meister and as a 3GPP CT WG4 rapporteur since 2018, and as co-chair of the IETF Distributed Mobility Management Working Group since 2019.

Bart Janssens is a Senior Specialist Packet Network Architect for Colt Technology Services. During his 22 years career at Colt Bart has always been part ofand building various network generations following closely the latest industry innovations including driving early proof of concepts. engineering defining   Bart is also working on various next generation performance, fault and orchestration OSS platforms supporting Colt’s Digital Infrastructure rapid evolutions.

Latif Ladid is the founder and president of the IPv6 Forum. He is Chair of the IEEE COMSOC IoT subcommittee, chair of IEEE COMSOC 5G subcommittee, co-chair of IEEE COMSOC SDN-NFV subcommittee, Emeritus Trustee, Internet Society - ISOC; IPv6 Ready Logo Program Board and Chair of ETSI IPv6 ISG.

Juan Rodriguez is a technology leader at Nokia, providing strategic leadership and technical direction for the evolution of massive-scale networks and next- generation architecture in wireless and wireline applications. With extensive experience in IP Routing (HW/SW) development and execution, Juan is at the forefront of transforming network architectures to meet the demands of an increasingly digital world.   As the leader of the IP Consulting Engineering team for U.S. MSO, Major, and Telco (Wireline & Wireless) accounts, Juan blends deep technical expertise with a customer-centric approach to deliver innovative, scalable, and automated IP networking solutions. His work enables Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to unlock new revenue streams and optimize network performance in today’s hyper-connected ecosystem.   Juan’s expertise spans Mobile Anyhaul, Broadband Aggregation, Business IP Services, Carrier WiFi, 5G Next-Gen Core, IP Core Routing, and network automation. His passion for end-to-end IP networking solutions and services has positioned him as a key player in driving next- generation network evolution.   Since joining Nokia in 2008, Juan has held various technical roles across the Americas Region, contributing to groundbreaking projects that shape the future of networking. He holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from PUCMM in the Dominican Republic and is based in Orlando, Florida.

Rafael Francis has over 25 years of experience in networking & telecommunications and is currently a Sr. Director of Product Management at Ciena where he leads a team responsible for next-generation routing platforms & strategy.   Prior to joining Ciena he was the VP of Product Management for Cyan Inc. where he was responsible for Cyan’s Z-Series packet-optical portfolio and Blue Planet SDN software including its initial launch.  Prior to joining Cyan, he also held product management leadership positions at ECI Telecom, Laurel Networks, and FORE Systems. His knowledge and contributions in next-generation networking and its business applications have also been demonstrated through various conference speaking engagements and articles.   Rafael has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Phil Bedard is a Distinguished Engineer with Cisco Systems focused on service provider network architecture. Phil serves as a lead architect for Cisco's Agile Services Networking and Routed Optical Networking validated solutions covering IP and optical technology for network operators.   Prior to joining Cisco in 2017, Phil worked for over 20 years as an engineer or architect at large service providers. Phil also works in standards bodies such as IETF and O-RAN, and serves as a NANOG program committee member.

Bruno has over 30 years of experience in the telecom industry and joined Nokia (then Alcatel-Lucent) in April 2014.   He’s heading the EMEA Product Line Management team for Nokia’s IP Routing and Network Automation portfolio, including the 7950 XRS, 7750 SR, 7250 IXR, 7220 IXR, 7210 SAS and 7705 SAR families of routers, the Network Services Platform (NSP), the Fabric Services Platform (FSS) and the Deepfield solutions. This industry-leading portfolio provides service providers and large enterprises with a Smart Network Fabric spanning from access to core.   Prior to his current role he was a Technical Lead at Juniper Networks for 14 years, providing guidance to carriers and large enterprises on how to deploy and optimize their IP/MPLS and Carrier Ethernet networks.   He holds an MSc in Telecommunications from the Military Academy in Brussels and made it to Captain in charge of the Belgian Armed Forces’ country-wide data network before leaving and joining BT Belgium as a Design Engineer.   He is based in Antwerp, Belgium.

Moran Roth is a Director of Product Management at Juniper Networks, leading the Access & Aggregation Routing and Optical Solutions teams. In this role, he focuses on Metro solutions for Service Providers and Cloud Providers as well as on IPoDWDM.  Before joining Juniper, Moran held several leadership positions in Product Management and Engineering at several networking companies, most recently, managing the long-haul PLM team at Infinera with focus on optical transport solutions for the CSP and ICP segments. He has more than 20 years of experience in the communication industry in large companies as well as startups. Moran holds an MSc. In Electrical Engineering with specialization in photonics.

Robert is the L3 and Advanced IP Apps PLM for Ciena’s SDN controller & NMS/EMS, Navigator Network Control Suite (formerly known as MCP).   Robert joined Ciena via the Nortel MEN acquisition in 2009. From graduation, he started working in fixed line copper access technologies, SIP VoIP and MPLS before changing to photonic networking for his academic research work. Going back into IP/Ethernet to co-invent PBB-TE (802.1Qay), he was then a prime in the network management solution for this technology and eventually all IP/Ethernet. He shifted to a broader architecture role shaping Ciena’s IP/Optical convergence before handing that off to production, and spent some years directing the company’s 5G mobile solution before returning to the management space for his current role.   Robert holds twenty four patents, an MA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, UK and an MSc in Telecommunications and EngD in Photonic control planes, both from the University of London, UK.

David is Head of IP Solutions and IP Portfolio Marketing at Ribbon, he focuses on Ribbon’s IP Routing portfolio and solutions for multiservice backhaul (mobile, fixed, MSO), Enterprises, mission-critical industries and defense, homeland security and government.  He is an experienced professional with extensive telecommunications knowledge gained from working across all infrastructure technologies including IP/MPLS, Carrier Ethernet, Optical Transport, PON, Wireless Access, SDH/SONET and Network Systems. Before Ribbon, David held roles in Development, Systems Engineering, Product Strategy and Product Management at a number of companies including Marconi, Fujitsu, Lucent Technologies and Nokia. He brings this proven combination of marketing, technology and product strategy expertise to his current marketing role at Ribbon.

As MEF’s Chief Product Officer, Daniel is responsible for the development and implementation of a range of strategic MEF programs that are central to MEF’s transformation to an agile-process oriented standards development organization defining, implementing and certifying MEF 3.0 services. These innovative programs – including SD-WAN definition and certification, MEF 3.0 Products, MEF 3.0 Proofs of Concept and the MEF Developer Community – enable MEF’s 200+ member companies to accelerate the transformation of their networks and operations to offer and deliver MEF 3.0 services.   In addition, Daniel is responsible for MEF membership in the EMEA region, developing relationships and facilitating engagement of member companies in every aspect of MEF activities.   Daniel has been involved in the networking industry for over 25 years holding a variety of positions in RAD Data Communications, as well as co-founding Resolute Networks where he held executive positions. Representing Resolute in the MEF, Daniel served for 3 years as MEF Global Marketing Co-Chair and was elected three times to the MEF Board of Directors. Since 2010, Daniel has been a senior member of the MEF staff.

Qin Wu currently serves on the IAB and is one of the organizers of the NEMOPS workshop. He has many years’ experience working in the IETF contributing to the development of YANG models and to the refinement of YANG.  He currently focuses on driving digital twin networking and Network and Application collaboration and chairs SCONE Working group in IETF WIT area. In addition, he also helps form IVY, GREEN, NMOPS WGs,etc in IETF OPS area and has chaired several IETF working groups intended to support the aims and ambitions of network operators, and is a member of the IETF’s Operations Directorate.

Etienne Roux began to work on routers at the GÉANT2 NOC, he continued his carrier at Bouygues Telecom and finally came at Orange. He works in the RBCI (AS3215) engineering team since 2011 and is focus on the backhaul and services for ISP and customers.   Beside his work at Orange, he is also the deputy mayor of his village in charge of youth, school and library.

Julian Lucek is a Sr Distinguished Systems Engineer at Juniper Networks, where he has been working with many operators on the design and evolution of their networks. Before joining Juniper Networks, he worked at BT.  He has a PhD in ultrahigh-speed optical transmission and processing from Cambridge University. He also has a Master's/Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cambridge University.  He is the holder of several patents in the area of communications technology. He is co-author of the book "MPLS-Enabled Applications: Emerging Developments and New Technologies", by Ina Minei and Julian Lucek.

Eduard Metz is a Network Architect at KPN, responsible for the architecture of KPN's packet network infrastructure. Eduard has been working on packet network architectures since 1996, most of this time with KPN.  Currently, he is working on a large network transformation within KPN.

Arnold is responsible for marketing IP network products and solutions at Nokia. During his 35 years in the telecommunications industry, Arnold held various roles in engineering, research and innovation, product management, sales and marketing.  Arnold is based in Ottawa, Canada and holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.

Cheng Li is responsible for SRv6, CUPS, CAN related standards, author of books "SRv6 Network Programming: Ushering in an new era of IP" and "Reconstructing the Network: SDN Architecture and Implementation

Kashif Islam is a Principal Telecommunication Architect in Red Hat’s consulting organization and help service providers transform their existing mobile infrastructure into next-generation cloud-native 5G networks   Kashif is a 20+ year veteran in the IT industry and has architected several complex, large-scale networks for some of the biggest wireline and mobile service providers across the world. He is also an O-RAN alliance contributor and co-authored O-RAN xHaul Packet Switched Architectures and Solutions specification. Kashif has also co-authored a book titled "A Network Architect's Guide to 5G”, which is the first book to cover mobile core, RAN, and transport technology fundamentals and network design details.   Kashif is Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and a double CCIE (#14300) in Data Centers and Routing/Switching Technologies. He holds a Bachelor degree from Sir Syed University (Pakistan), as well as a Master of Engineering in Internetworking degree from Dalhousie University, Canada.

Krishnan Thirukonda is a Principal Engineer with Cisco Systems currently focusing on Large Scale network automation and analytics technologies.  Krishnan has extensive background in network automation, and is a networking veteran with previous experience in routing, mpls and IPv6 technologies as well as Cisco data center and virtualization solutions.

As principal SDN controller PLM, Reza is responsible to provide the vision and execution of Ciena’s IP and Optical applications in a multi-vendor, multi-layer converged network (i.e., Ciena Coherent Routing vision). He is responsible to take the convergence vision to the next level by delivering an industry first true multi-layer IP over Optical transport solution.   Previously as Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS), Reza was the director of product line manager of carrier SDN controller platform at Nokia. He was solution PLM responsible for role of Carrier SDN controller on automation and assurance of 5G E2E network slicing/Transport slicing. He was also responsible for support of IP/MPLS products in areas of Services, Routing, Policy, OAM and 4G EPC on Carrier SDN platform.   He possesses over 20 years of experience in telecommunication industry with technical track record and diverse background in IP/MPLS/SDN/Traffic Engineering product management, software engineering and research & development. He is co-author and co-editor of multiple standard documents at IETF and BBF. Reza holds a Ph.D. degree in Control and Robotics from Concordia University in Canada and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology.

Waleed Akbar (PhD) is a researcher at CTTC in Barcelona, where his work concentrates on SDN/NFV, network virtualization, big data, data collection, network automation, energy efficiency, and 5G-Advanced networks.  He has accumulated considerable experience in both industrial and research projects. Notably, he contributed to the ETSI TeraFlowSDN initiative by designing and planning closed-loop automation, as well as developing data collection, analysis, and automation services. In addition, his contributions to network automation in TeraFlowSDN will play a key role in the FLEX-SCALE and PROTEUS-6G projects, focusing on energy efficiency. Beyond this, Dr. Akbar has hands-on experience in deploying energy monitoring systems on CTTC’s ADRENALINE testbed®, an SDN/NFV packet/optical transport network and edge/core cloud platform for end-to-end 5G and IoT services. His responsibilities in the testbed include designing and implementing domain-specific agents for energy measurement collection, which enabled the validation and verification of SLAs and policies to meet QoS requirements.   He also has contributed to standardization efforts through his participation in the ETSI Industry Specification Group (ISG) Fifth Generation Fixed Network (F5G). There, he has proposed standardize approaches for obtaining and analyzing energy data in real time, ensuring operators have accurate insights to enhance energy efficiency.   Dr. Akbar earned his PhD in computer engineering in 2023 from Jeju National University, South Korea, with a thesis centered on designing, developing, and implementing a proof-of-concept for Software Defined Infrastructure, intent-based systems, and zero-trust networks.

Rakesh Gandhi is a Principal Software Engineer in Cisco's Internet Routing Group where he is innovating and leading development of Software for Network Performance Measurement and Streaming Telemetry that enable AI for Networks.  Rakesh is also an active contributor at IETF Standards, is co-author of 14 RFCs and over 16 WG documents. He has filed over 50 Patents in the USA and has a number of publications in the field of telecommunications networks.

Anton Elita is a Technical Solution Architect at Juniper Networks, specializing in automation and routing, with over 20 years of experience in the networking industry.   Before joining Juniper Networks in 2013, Anton held senior network engineer roles at various internet service providers. His extensive hands-on experience continues to play a crucial role in his current work as a solutionarchitect, where he collaborates with major service providers across the EMEA region. He is a holder of JNCIE-SP certification.

In his current role, Jérôme drives DDoS security research & competence development at Nokia, as part of its Deepfield portfolio of network security & analytics.   Based out of Paris, he joined the company’s Mobile Networks organization in 2005 in Malaysia; and he since covered a variety of sales & pre-sales responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific region, before returning to Europe in 2023.   Jérôme graduated with a Master’s degree from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées in Lyon, France.

Qi Meiyu is the director of Network routing technology lab, which is responsible router related clients collaborations and technological innovation. She has been continuously committed to the research of network scheduling and optimization algorithms.  Recently, she has made breakthroughs in the innovation of WAN for AI, focusing on the research of efficient big data cross clouds and long-distance large model training across data centers, and has completed verification in the customer's real network.

Jeffrey (Zhaohui) Zhang is a Distinguished Engineer in Juniper Networks' routing protocols team. He has worked on routing technologies for over 30 years, from OSPF/BGP/LDP/RSVP, MPLS-TE, MPLS/BGP-enabled services, to Multicast (PIM/MVPN/EVPN), VPLS/EVPN, RIFT, Segment Routing, and Mobile User Plane.   Jeffrey Zhang is an active IETF participant who co-chairs the RIFT and BESS WGs in the IETF.

Waris Sagheer is the Senior Director of Product Management at Cisco's Data Center and Provider Connectivity Group. With over two decades of experience in the service provider sector, Waris is a seasoned expert in service provider architecture and related technologies.   His extensive skill set in product management, customer experience, and engineering has driven innovation and technological advancements across Cisco's Service Provider portfolio and solutions.