8x8, Inc.

Vik Verma is Chief Executive Officer at 8x8, Inc., the world’s first communications cloud provider, empowering over 1 million business users to communicate and collaborate across dispersed locations to deliver exceptional customer experiences. 8x8 is a pioneer in unified communications and customer engagement solutions with over 150 patents, driving global innovation in how companies communicate with their employees and customers.Verma is an engineer at heart who began his career at Savi Technology, Inc. (Savi), a leader in RFID and cloud-based technologies as a design engineer and went on to become the Chief Operating Officer and eventually the Chief Executive Officer of Savi in 1997. He holds eight patents and was named one of 40 “Technology Pioneers” by the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland in 2003 for a successful track record in building profitable businesses around emerging technologies.Verma joined 8x8 as a board member in 2012 and was appointed Chief Executive officer within a year to lead the company’s global expansion. He is the driving force behind 8x8’s market leadership in a 50 billion dollar unified and contact center communications market and its continued push for innovation in areas like Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and data analytics. Under Verma’s leadership, 8x8 has evolved into a global player in unified cloud communications from its inception as a Silicon Valley startup.With more than 25 years of industry and management experience, Verma has successfully transformed several technology businesses through organic growth, international expansion and strategic mergers and acquisitions. Prior to 8x8, he was President of Strategic Venture Development at Lockheed Martin where he led early-stage technologies to new global commercial markets through collaborative incubators, intellectual property portfolio licensing and strategic partnerships with multi-national companies. Prior to this, Verma was the President of the IS&GS Savi Group, a Lockheed Martin technology and information services division providing real-time supply chain management and security solutions for government and commercial markets worldwide. His journey with Lockheed Martin began when he was Chairman of the Board and CEO of Savi, that was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2006.Verma holds a B.S.E.E. degree from the Florida Institute of Technology, an M.S.E. degree from the University of Michigan in electrical engineering, and the post-graduate degree of Engineer in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Subsequently, in keeping with Silicon Valley tradition, Verma left his PhD program at Stanford to join the startup world. He is also an alumni of the Executive Management programs for CEOs at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, and the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.Verma’s Florida Tech honors include being a recipient of the Faculty Honors Award (Co-Valedictorian) Class of 1987, the 1987 Tau Beta Pi Williams Fellowship, the 1999 Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, and being selected as a commencement speaker in 2002. He served on the Florida Tech Board of Trustees from 2002 to 2007 and rejoined the board in 2015.

Airgraft

Mladen Barbaric is a brand and product craftsman, and a serial tech entrepreneur. He is the founder of Pearl Studios, and creator of several successful brands and disruptive products. His companies have shipped millions of devices around the world to date. Barbaric now serves as founder and CEO at Airgraft, leading company strategy, brand and product direction. Having graduated from College for Creative Studies as an industrial designer in 2001, Barbaric started his career designing cars at Ford, then proceeded to work with a number of automotive brands, carving his view on the interplay between brand and product. In 2008 he founded Pearl Studios and focused on the development of brands, products and product platforms outside of automotive. He led Pearl to become a top boutique firm, working with major brands and helping launch a string of notable startups. Barbaric was involved in early development of wearables, teaming up with the likes of Qualcomm at the outset. He’s helped build Misfit, a pioneering activity tracker, amongst several innovative wearables brands. In the process, Barbaric became recognized for his ability to rapidly build lean teams made of outstanding engineers and designers, creating formidable impact while remaining small. His rigorous approach of “less and better” has resulted in a career defined by a consistent output of elegant solutions to very complex problems.Mladen is available for comment and interviews.

BlocWatch

Aaron Newman is a serial entrepreneur who previously founded four other successful startups: CloudCheckr, Techrigy, DbSecure, and Application Security, Inc. He previously served as CEO of CloudCheckr. Aaron authored the books Enterprise 2.0, printed by McGraw-Hill, and the Oracle Security Handbook, printed by Oracle Press. He is an acclaimed international speaker on technology topics and has been awarded multiple patents in database security and social media. Prior to DbSecure, Aaron held technology positions at Price Waterhouse, Bankers Trust, and as an independent IT consultant. Aaron proudly served in the U.S. Army during the First Gulf War. Aaron currently serves as a Trustee of the Strong National Museum of Play.

Bluangelinvestor

Merri Silverstein is an Investor who invested in many ICOs which brought her to also join a V.C. fund. She also advises start ups, started an app for the Blockchain space, mentors women in stem and has a great understanding of our present fiat and the future of digital currency. With two degrees in the sciences, Merris passion is captivating and she is looking forward to bringing more women into Blockchain through various sources of media. She has written articles on Crypto, been interviewed live and interviewed over 20 start ups for a TV pilot. She is passionate to see changes for a better world. 

Cannabis Risk Management Association

Currently serving as the Chief Advisor for the International Cannabis Risk Management Association; an International Affairs Association focused on managing risks for the global cannabis industry, specifically; political, economic, social, physical and legal through the sharing of information and best practices.Former Property/Casualty insurance executive with significant experience in roles focused on underwriting, business unit/regional leadership, strategic planning, building teams, and management of distribution and product development.Most recent experience related to the launch of an international P&C start-up company and subsequent Multinational Accounts Practice. Specialties include: International Cannabis Risk Management, InsureTech/ Start-Ups, Technology Insurance- I.T., E&O, Cyber-risk, Med Tech & Life Sciences and, Property & Casualty Underwriting, including Global Programs.

CannDynamics

Ruth Fisher, PhD, is Co-Founder of CannDynamics, where she researches cannabis and designs algorithms and analytics to help medical cannabis users find products for their particular needs.Ruth’s work focuses on the technology and healthcare industries. She has helped companies, including Qualcomm and Amgen, in litigation support roles, analyzing market dynamics and putting values on things that are hard to quantify. She has also worked with start-ups, where she designed systems to collect and analyze information and provide meaningful and actionable information to users.Ruth is a systems modeler, an author, a teacher, a perpetual learner, and a baker. You can reach her at ruth@quantaa.com.

Cisco

Aruna Ravichandran is VP/Chief Marketing Officer for Webex Collaboration Marketing at Cisco and leads all aspects of global marketing, including brand management, product marketing, digital marketing, and demand generation. Aruna has a passion for helping customers transform their workplaces using todays powerful collaboration technologies. Prior to Cisco, Aruna held marketing and engineering leadership positions at CA Technologies (acquired by Broadcom), Juniper Networks, and Hewlett Packard. She holds an MS in Computer Engineering and an MBA from Santa Clara University and a BS in Computer Science from Bangalore University. Aruna has also completed Northwestern Universitys Kellogg Chief Marketing Officer program. She has published two books on DevOps and is a contributing blogger for the Forbes Technology Council. Aruna is on the Advisory Board for Graphics Communications at California Polytechnic State University and the Advisory Board for Panzura, a leading provider of cloud file sharing solutions. Outside of work, Aruna helps guide students into technology-related majors and careers by mentoring students and giving talks at local high schools. She also practices martial arts and is a certified kickboxing instructor.

Enigmatic Investments

Sashien currently serves as Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Enigmatic Investments, a technology driven investment fund that focuses on several long/short equity strategies within the public markets. He is an ambitious entrepreneurial-minded business development, marketing, and investment professional who has an innate ability at recognizing opportunities and driving value to indelible brands. Prior to founding Enigmatic Investments, Sashien worked in the burgeoning industry of the Smart Homes & Intelligent Buildings space where he led the Business Development, Marketing and Strategic Partnerships for the sectors go-to industry association. He has consulted and worked with fortune 1000 companies such as Amazon, Intel Corporation, Google, and Honeywell and has forged relationships with many season executives.

Estate Flow

FloGrown Cannabis Consulting

Mr. Stiffler brings a passion for drug policy governance and system implementation of public safety and diversion prevention. He served the BioTrack brand as the Vice President of Government Affairs, the head of their Government Procurement team, and the State of Illinois Contract Manager assisting lawmakers in the process of forming sound regulatory regimes and overseeing the emerging legal cannabis and hemp industries. He led the BioTrack team successfully in the creation and submission of competitive bid proposals resulting in several government contract awards. He performed a number of functions including, but not limited to the following: Project Management; Contract Management; Business Analysis; Public and Governmental Relations; Technical Writing; Strategic Planning; Contract Negotiations; and Business Development. As the CEO and Founder of FloGrown Consulting, Mr. Stiffler offers various consulting services to multistate operators and government legislative and regulatory bodies. These services include, but are not limited to policy and regulatory development, market forecasting and analysis, regulatory compliance, information technology infrastructure, supply chain management, legislative affairs, crisis communications, public relations, and license application planning, design, development, and submission. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration, with a minor in Project Management (Magna Cum Laude) and is currently pursuing his Masters in Information Systems Management, with a minor in Information Security. Furthermore, he has provided subject matter expertise during legislative hearings and industry-related events in virtually every state in the US, Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Australia, and Europe. He is considered one of the foremost thought leaders in cannabis program management and policy development.

Fluree

With 20+ years of providing Enterprise Software solutions into various healthcare-related markets, Scott naturally developed an interest in applying blockchain and DLT to solving business problems. Intrigued by how blockchain could be built-in and combined with the qualities of an enterprise-grade database for business applications, Scott joined Fluree, leading their sales and business development efforts.

FTZ

Michael Kramer has extensive experience in the financial industry. Prior to the inception of FTZ Blockchain, Mr. Kramer was the CEO and President of Sales for Red Sand Financial. He was the driving force behind global sales, strategic marketing, and company growth. During his tenure with Red Sand, Mr. Kramer was the impetus behind raising funds totalling close to $100 Million. Due to his expansive knowledge in the financial sector, he works with venture capital firms and hedge funds in the cannabis world. For over 10 years, Mr. Kramer served the public sector in the states of Pennsylvania and Florida in law enforcement and is a long term advocate for the legalization of cannabis.In 2017, by combining his vast background in finance and law enforcement, Mr. Kramer became the Co-Founder of FTZ Blockchain. He is committed to providing the government and the people with the essential technology for security, transparency, compliance regulation, and public safety. Mr. Kramer built FTZ Blockchain to provide the innovative and effective solution to the cannabis industry’s top concerns and play an integral role in helping to eliminate the black market.

Google

Kate Matsudaira joined Google just over a year ago and is a Director in Google Tech Engineering. Her teams help build the infrastructure that powers Google. Prior to coming to Google, Kate helped build several successful startups that have gone on to get acquired by companies like eBay, O’Reilly Media and Limelight. Kate started her career as a software engineer and lead at Microsoft, and Amazon. She is a keynote speaker, published author, and has been honored with recognition like NCWIT Symons Innovator Award and Seattles Top 40 under 40.

Harvard Medical School

Dr. Allen Hamdan is a vascular surgeon in Boston, Massachusetts. He is affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he completed his residency and served as a fellow. Allen is also an Associate Professor of Surgery specializing in vascular surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He joined the Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians in 1999, practicing in both Chelsea and Boston. Allen received his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine and has been in practice for over 20 years. He is a member of the Society for Vascular Surgery and the American College of Surgeons. Allen has had a productive academic career with over 100 publications and chapters and has served as a PI for numerous major clinical trials Allen created Food is Medicine that supports the GBFB in 2012 and has served on the Greater Boston Food Bank’s Board of Advisors since 2015 and on the Board of Directors since 2017.

HealthChain

Dr. Engelman is the Medical Director of the Heart, Vascular and Critical Care Units at Baystate Medical Center. He is an Associate Professor of Surgery at The University of Massachusetts-Baystate, and Tufts University School of Medicine. He started the Enhanced Recovery After Cardiac Surgery (ERAS® Cardiac) Collaborative to nationally standardize best practices. He has led a group of international experts to publish the first consensus guidelines for best practices in enhanced recovery following cardiac surgery. He is a part of the HealthChain team that is bringing blockchain into the medical device sector of healthcare.

HireMatch.io

IBM

As Vice President of IBMs Global Technology Service Providers (TSPs), Marie leads the sales strategy, working directly with clients, business partners and IBM markets around the world. Under Maries leadership, IBM has expanded their global TSP ecosystem of Cloud Service Providers, Managed Service Providers, Independent Software Vendors by building a focused GTM plan for these NextGen Partners.In her 20-year tenure with IBM Marie has spent 15 years working directly with TSPs. As such she is an expert in building teams, guiding clients and partners to the right technology solution, and championing programs such as the CSP Growth Initiative. She is also a frequent guest-speaker and thought-leader at IT Conferences. Join us Wednesday at 11 as Marie will deliver the IBM keynote address here at ITEXPO. Marie comes from a Systems Engineering background and holds a Bachelors of Science degree from Franklin Pierce University, New Hampshire, U.S.

IBM

Deborah is currently the IBM Blockchain Ecosystem Marketing Leader and has served as Global Program Director for Business Partner Strategy for IBM Global Business Partner Marketing and developed the Emerging Leaders initiative to mentor and engage early career professionals. Passionate about community service, she is involved in many Corporate Sustainability & Responsibility projects and is part of the elite IBM Corporate Service Corps alumni. She also served in global program director roles for Digital Content Marketing and Value Added Distributor marketing. She developed and launched the IBM Business Partner Innovation Center program. Deborah was a 2019 CRN Women of the Channel honoree. She is a member of the CompTIA Blockchain Advisory Council and serves on the Women@IBM planning board. Deborah started her career in the world of advertising in New York City, serving as an account manager for IBM, SAP, and Sony. She serves on several non-profit boards of directors.

IBM

Sharon LaDay comes to the blockchain industry with a background in enterprise infrastructure solutions, startup investing, and education technology. Prior to her current role as Blockchain Ecosystem Leader at IBM, Sharon was Vice President, Business Development for Macmillan New Ventures where she developed and executed growth strategies with a portfolio of startups. Her additional startup experience comes from her time at edtech startups like Wimba which was acquired by Blackboard Inc., and storage networking startups like Andiamo Systems which was acquired by Cisco Systems. Her other enterprise infrastructure experience includes product and platform marketing at EMC Corporation and VERITAS Software; and high-availability/disaster recovery infrastructure design as an engineer for Datalink. Sharon earned a BS in Computer Science from Texas A&M University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

InAge Technology

Mr. Brahma P. Sen, CEO, InAge Technology, provides software consulting services to US federal government. Over last 10 years, he has worked in the Healthcare field as a consultant with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in many different federal mandated programs to increase the quality of healthcare while reducing cost. He has implemented software systems for interoperability among Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems and Clinical Data Repositories. He is currently involved in building foundational technology in Blockchain to provide healthcare services and digital identity.

Kirkland Law

Eric is the founder of Kirkland Law PC, and has the privilege of representing fast-growing companies in the US and Canada as well as private equity funds in the burgeoning cannabis industry. We provide a broad array of legal services with a focus on corporate structure, private offerings, secured debt financing, and tax matters. I have been the lead attorney on over $300 million in private offerings for cannabis companies since May of 2016. Eric also handles licensing agreements, equity incentive plans, and other legal issues that fast-growing businesses face as they expand. Eric also assists companies through the arduous permitting and licensing process, appear at city council hearings, and guide you through the many pitfalls that besiege many early-stage cannabis companies.

MyBlockchainExperts

Joe Holbrook has been in the IT field since 1993 when he was exposed to several HPUX systems on board a US Navy flagship USS JFK. He has migrated from UNIX networking world to Storage Area Networking(SAN) and then onto Enterprise Cloud/Virtualization and Blockchain Architectures. He has worked for numerous companies like HDS, 3PAR Data, Brocade, Dimension Data, EMC, Northrup Grumman, ViON, Ibasis.net, Chematch.com, SAIC and Siemens Nixdorf. He also has been a contract technical trainer for HPE (3PAR), Hitachi Data Systems, Training Associates, ITPrenuers and Global Knowledge. Joe is also a widely published course author on outlets such as LinkedIn Learning, INE.com and Pearson O’Reilly. Currently Joe is the owner of MyBlockChainExperts and is based out of Jacksonville FL. He is also a frequent conference speaker and blogger/technical marketer. Joe is also a Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP), Certified Blockchain Solutions Architect (CBSA) and Certified Blockchain Developer- Hyperledger Fabric- (CBDH) and avid Blockchain and Cryptocurrency geek. He also holds Industry leading certifications from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Brocade, Hitachi Data Systems, EMC, VMWare, CompTIA, HP, Cloud Credential Council, Palo Alto Networks and numerous other organizations. Joe is the author of “Architecting Enterprise Blockchain Solutions” Wiley January 2020.

Orion Innovations

Brandon West is a self-taught award winning blockchain and smart contract developer. He is a Graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in Finance and Entrepreneurship. He began his career in Finance at Walt Disney World where he taught himself how to program which led to the development of many applications automating various business tasks. He then went on to work at Royal Caribbean in the IT Newbuild department where became an integral part of the project development and deployment of the new “Smart Ship” initiatives. These projects included working internationally to build the largest and smartest ships in the world that sail the seas today. From building Finance and Technology skill sets, he has won multiple hackathons/startup events and naturally transitioned into crypto. Since then he is now a full-time blockchain developer, project manager, and consultant. One of his latest award winning projects is DigiTix.io, an event tickets platform powered by Ethereum. He is also a Technical Project Manager & Blockchain Developer at Orion Innovations and FinTech Consulting Group.

Orion Innovations

John is the VP of Business Services for Orion Innovations, a software development consulting company working in AI, machine learning, and blockchain technologies. He has over 20 years’ experience in the software applications space working for companies like Oracle and SAP, primarily in consulting services and education. John’s been in the Blockchain technology space since early 2017 and currently supports new enterprise clients with their Blockchain strategy initiatives. In addition to Orion he is involved with a few other companies as a Co-Founder or business advisor: Agriios.com, Illume.ai, Digitix.io.

Poly

Tim Root has a long history in the Unified Communications industry, starting with PictureTel where he held many engineering roles. Tim was the CTO of Picturetel when it was acquired by Polycom. At Polycom, Tim held several roles including the CTO of the Video Division working on technology that started the HD product lines. For the next 13 years Tim worked at several different startups. He founded VGo Communications (acquired by Vecna) and then served as CTO of Revolabs (acquired by Yamaha). Tim is now the VP & General Manager of the Video & Audio Conferencing Group at Poly (the recent combination Plantronics and Polycom), responsible for the full engineering strategy for the conference room family of products. Tim holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a dual master’s degree in engineering and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Sloan School of Management.

RingCentral

Curtis Peterson has more than 20 years of experience managing information technology and carrier-scale data and packet voice communication networks. At companies ranging in size from startups to Fortune 500 firms, Curtis has managed teams responsible for engineering, project management, operations, data security, network security, data center, carrier operations, and internet backbone design and operation. Curtis has been a pioneer in VoIP services in the business communications space and has been developing, launching, and operating Class 4 VoIP and customer-facing hosted PBX systems since 2002.

ScanSource

Mark Morgan is Executive Vice President of Strategy at ScanSource, a $4B leading provider of technology products and solutions. A Transformational Leader, Mark serves as an expert in delivering growth through innovation, technology and new business models. Throughout his career, he has held senior leadership roles in Corporate Strategy, M&A, Sales, Marketing, and Technology. Mark managed P&L and led growth transformations for multiple technology businesses ranging from $500M-$1B. He has extensive experience in POS, mobility, telcom, UCaaS, CCaaS, connectivity and cloud services.

TD Ameritrade

Sunayna Tuteja is the Managing Director of Digital Assets and Blockchain at TD Ameritrade. With more than ten years of diverse global experience, she has a proven record for building new ventures from scratch and leading the kind of change that is critical in shaping the future of business. In her current role, Sunayna is responsible for building a scalable blockchain and crypto practice within TD Ameritrade. This rapidly growing practice is inclusive of partnerships, investments and products to harness the growing power of blockchain technology. Prior to this position, Sunayna led an entrepreneurial “tiger team” at TD Ameritrade to build the next generation of products, experiences and business models needed to break down barriers to investing and engage more people on the platforms they use every day. Her team was responsible for delivering industry-first partnerships and products with cutting-edge startups and leading global technology companies including Apple, Amazon, Google, and Tencent. A life-long learner, Sunayna is working on her Juris Doctorate at Stanford Law with a focus on the impact and influence of disruptive technologies, and the future of jurisprudence. Through partnering with the Stanford Innovation Lab, she works closely with the start-up and VC communities helping to advance public and corporate innovation. Outside of work and school, you can find Sunayna adventuring the skies in her Cessna. You can stay connected on Twitter @Sunayna.

US Cannabis Pharmaceutical Research and Development

Health Care Executive with over 25 years of experience in the following areas (Cannabis-Hemp Investing, Operations, Laws, Regulation, Compliance, and Management, Skilled Nursing, Assisted Living, Home Healthcare, Therapy Management, Laboratory, Pharmacy Management, and Health Care Analytics).Michael is a subject matter expert in the Global Cannabis Industry with Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG.it) and Guidepoint. He has spoken at numerous conferences including the 2019 UBS Global Consumer and Retail Conference in Boston, FBI National Academy convention in Orlando, and CBD East Convention 2018 in Orlando.Upcoming speaking engagements include ONE Senior Place in April 2019, June 6, 2019 at the Cannabis Banking Summit in Pittsburgh, PA, June 22,23 in Atlanta, GA at the US Cannabis-Medical Cannabis Society sponsored Georgia Medical Cannabis Licensure and Education Seminar, and July 12-13 at Europe CBD Expo in London, England.Mr. Patterson is an Editorial Board Member for the American Journal of Medical Cannabis (AJMC), medical cannabis contributing writer for the Orlando Medical News Magazine and Florida MD Magazine, member of the Board of Directors for the Tourette Syndrome Awareness Foundation, and licensed Occupational Therapist and Nursing Home Administrator in 4 states.

Ghostpoint

Jeffrey Dworkin is a proven B2B marketing executive with a strong track record of delivering growth through multiple environments, including electronic, social, and traditional marketing programs. By combining elements of both content and product marketing, carefully tracked and refined with a deep understanding of analytics, Jeff has created proven marketing initiatives that have driven double digit growth in web traffic, as well as substantially increased prospect acquisition and lead conversion. Most recently Jeff was the Director of Marketing for Sangoma Technologies where he led the selection and implementation of a Marketing Automation Platform, and used a variety methods including Content Marketing, SEO and SEM techniques to increase web traffic by over 55% and unique visits by over 70%. Relevancy of the website was increased by over 60%. This resulted in over 100,000 net new prospects, over 100% growth in Visitors, over 85% growth in prospects and 140% growth in Marketing Qualified Leads. Prior to Sangoma, Jeff was enterprise marketing manager with Dialogic. In that role, he was responsible for creating and managing the market strategy for Dialogic’s Open Source, Fax, Fax-Over-IP and IVVR Markets. Prior to Dialogic, Jeff held executive product management and business development positions with a number of technology firms, and was a founder of iFace.com, which was eventually acquired by Rare Medium (Nasdaq:RRRR). Jeff holds a degree in Industrial Engineering and started in the technology sector nearly 25 years ago as an IVR developer, and has an extensive background in technology, product management and marketing. He is a regular speaker on various communications topics, including TDM-to-IP Migration Strategies, Unified Communications and Microsoft Lync, Open Source Telephony, Business Enabled Communication Process and Interactive Voice Response System Design.

PKE Consulting LLC & UC Strategies.com

Phil Edholm is the President and Principal of PKE Consulting. PKE consults to end users and vendors in the communications and networking markets. PKE works with our clients to deliver the value of the integration of information and interaction. Whether with Unified Communications or integration of communications and business processes, PKE has the experience and knowledge to transform your organization. Phil is also the organizer of WebRTC World Expo and Conference, the global eco-system event for WebRTC, the next major transformation in technology.Phil Edholm has over 30 years experience in creating innovation and transformation in networking and communications. Prior to founding PKE , he was Vice President of Technology Strategy and Innovation for Avaya. In this role, he was responsible for defining vision and strategic technology and the integration of the Nortel product portfolio into Avaya. He was responsible for portfolio architecture, standards activities, and User Experience. Prior to Avaya, he was CTO/CSO for the Nortel Enterprise business for 9 years. At Nortel, he led the development of VoIP solutions and multimedia communications as well as IP transport technology. His background includes extensive LAN and data communications experience, including 13 years with Silicon Valley start-ups.Phil is recognized as an industry leader and visionary. In 2007, he was recognized by Frost and Sullivan with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Growth, Innovation and Leadership in Telecommunications. Phil is a widely sought speaker and has been in the VoiceCon/Enterprise Connect Great Debate three times. He has been recognized by the IEEE as the originator of “Edholm’s Law of Bandwidth” as published in July 2004 IEEE Spectrum magazine and as one of the “Top 100 Voices of IP Communications by Internet Telephony magazine. Phil was a member of the IEEE 802.3 standards committee, developed the first multi-protocol network interfaces, and was a founder of the Frame Relay Forum. Phil has 16 patents and holds a BSME/EE from Kettering University.