Schedule

Keynote Speakers

Keynote 1: IoT: The Internet’s Next Evolution
Dr. Yi Zhao, Vice President of Standardization & Industry Development, Futurewei Technologies, Inc. (Huawei R&D USA)

Yi Zhao, Ph.D. is Vice President of Futurewei Technologies, Inc. (Huawei R&D USA), the North America subsidiary of Huawei Technologies, Ltd. headquartered in Shenzhen, China. As its first US employee, Dr. Zhao assisted the parent company in successfully establishing the subsidiary organization in Plano, Texas. During his career in Huawei USA, Dr. Zhao has been in various leadership roles of company’s operation, research and development, sales and marketing, industry standards, business strategy and development, intellectual property rights, as well as the company’s public and industry relations.

Dr. Zhao has over 25 years experience in telecommunications and IT industries. Prior to joining Huawei, Dr. Zhao worked for research institutes (Shanghai Jiao Tong University and The University of Texas at Dallas) and major corporations — Hewlett Packard and Ericsson — in different technical and managerial positions.

Dr. Zhao has served in the board for numbers of forums and committees in ICT industry including Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), IPsphere Forum, Open Patent Alliance (OPA), and International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS). He has been frequently invited to speak to various industry and business forums in the US and China.

Dr. Zhao was a board director for the Dallas Regional Chamber and co-chair of the DRC Innovation and Technology Council. He is currently a member of Associate Board for SMU Cox School of Business, and serves as industry advisors to the Eric Johnson Engineering School in the University of Texas at Dallas and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in SMU.

In 2008, Dr. Zhao received the Distinguished Alumni Award from The University of Texas at Dallas. It is the highest honor bestowed on alumni and is given to individuals who are distinguished in their chosen profession or life’s work and who demonstrate pride in the University.

Dr. Zhao has a BSCS and an MSCS from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a Ph.D. in computer science from The University of Texas at Dallas.

Keynote 2: Human-Centric Innovation
Rod Naphan, Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President of Solutions & Portfolio Planning, Fujitsu Network Communications

As CTO and SVP for Fujitsu Network Communications, Rod is responsible for Strategy, Solutions Planning, Product Planning and Portfolio Management.

Rod’s tenure with Fujitsu has included various leadership roles in planning and engineering with a background in software engineering, systems engineering, product marketing, and product line and program management for the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining Fujitsu, he worked as a software engineer at Bell Northern Research in Ottawa, Canada.

Rod holds a bachelor of applied science degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and a master of applied science degree in systems design engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Keynote 3: Be a Founder of a Technology Company
Anuj Jain, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Orchestra Technology

Anuj Jain is CEO of Orchestra Technology. He is a veteran to the wireless telecommunications industry, bringing a unique balance of business and technology together. He has worked in Telecom, Wireless and IT sectors for over 20 years. He is an entrepreneur at heart who values talent, creativity and loyalty. Prior to joining Orchestra Technology he was the VP of Professional Services and Acision for three years and built the business for the Americas Region from the ground up. Before Acision, he co-founded Spatial Wireless in 2001 and served as the Vice President of Engineering. Spatial Wireless was acquired by Alcatel in December 2004. He continued at Alcatel and took on the role of CTO and VP of Global Support for the Mobile NGN Core product lines till 2008. Before that, Anuj worked for companies like Siemens AG and Sabre, Inc in Germany and France in Product Development roles. He is a Gold Medalist from Punjab University, PEC, Chandigarh in Electronics and Communications Engineering.

Parallel Sessions

Session 1: IoT Infrastructure/ Connected Technologies – Harmony Ballroom 1

Session Chair: Min Lai
2:40 – 3:10 PM: “Disrupting Educational IT with Virtual Desktop solutions”, Dr. Hong Cai, CTO of Cloud Computing, ZTE USA
3:10 – 3:40 PM: “Quo Vadis IoT”, Dr. Ariton Xhafa, Project Manager, IoT Lab, Texas Instruments
3:40 – 4:10 PM: “Unleashing the Power of Smart Grid IoT”, Dr. Yu Meng, Data Scientist, Oncor Electric Delivery
4:15 – 4:40 PM: Panel Discussion

Session 2: IoT Applications/ Personalized Services – Harmony Ballroom 2

Session Chair: Charles Chow
2:40 – 3:10 PM: “IoT is empowering the Utility of The Future”, Michael Van Boven, Director, Technology, Deloitte Consulting
3:10 – 3:40 PM: “How personalized solutions and IoT can revolutionize the Oil & Gas industry”, Elaine Petty, Team Leader, Technical Software, Halliburton
3:40 – 4:10 PM: “Bioinformatics and Personalize Medicine”, Dr. Yang Xie, M.D., Associate Professor and Director, Quantitative Biomedical Research Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center
4:15 – 4:40 PM: Panel Discussion

Session 3: Leadership & Career Development Session – Harmony Ballroom 3

Session Chair: Wen-Shin Wang
2:40 – 3:10 PM: “Connectivity and Personalization in Leadership”, Kyle Flessner, VP and Manager, WW Manufacturing Operations, Texas Instruments
3:10 – 3:40 PM: “Feedback and Feedforward”, Suzan Greene, Customer Operations Manager, Oncor Electric Delivery
3:10 – 4:10 PM: “Talking about STEM and Your Career”, Teena Piccione, Assistant VP, Big Data, AT&T
4:15 – 5:00 PM Panel Discussion
Panelists: All above speakers in Session 3, and
Kim Cummings, Regional Director/HR at BNSF Railway
Carina Reyes, VP of Pre-sales Consulting and Design US Enterprise Delivery, Xerox