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Although LIVE events are now over, registrants will continue to have access to recorded sessions until the end of July. Registration is still open.
Tuesday, 15 June 2021
10:30am – 11:50am (EDT)
B3 Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility
B5: Emerging Entrepreneurship
Monday, 21 June 2021
10:50am – 12:10pm (EDT)
B1: Technology Adoption and Innovation Partnerships
Tuesday, 22 June 2021
09:30am – 10:50am (EDT)
B4: Smart Cities: Technology Integration and Regulatory Issues
10:50am – 12:10pm (EDT)
B2: Protecting & Sharing Intellectual Property
B1: Technology Adoption and Innovation Partnerships
Monday, 21 June 2021, 10:50am – 12:10pm (EDT)
Organizer: Pierre Boucher, General Manager Innovation ENCQOR, Canada
Panelists:
Jacques Magen, Chair SME Working Group, Networld Europe, European Technology Platform
Abhimanyu Gosain, Technical Program Director, Platform for Advanced Wireless Research, USA
Dritan Kaleshi, Director of 5G Technology, Digital Catapult
Description: With 5G and similar technologies such as AI gaining more and more momentum in their implementation into vertical industries and with research on them ongoing, it becomes more important to understand how they are being applied across multiple sectors of industry and society. Insights can often be gained in environments with multiple vertical ecosystem participants that may have differing perspectives and may orient part of the next stage of research on them. Initiatives such as Networld Europe, 5GPPP, PAWR, ENCQOR and others offer opportunities to apply new technologies in many areas, foster participation of SMEs and link with research initiatives in various verticals.
Bios:
Pierre Boucher
Mr. Boucher is Managing Director of ENCQOR Innovation, an initiative providing pre-commercial access to 5G for innovators in Canada.
Previously, he was responsible for research and innovation at the Ericsson Center in Montreal for more than 25 years, involved in various technologies and their applications in various fields such as transport, smart grids, digital transformation, health. and sustainable development among others.
Mr. Boucher has served and still sits on various boards of directors of NPOs involved in innovation
He graduated from École Polytechnique de Montréal in electrical and computer engineering.
Jacques Magen
Jacques Magen has more than 30 years of experience in international R&D and innovation all over Europe and beyond, most specifically in the field of telecommunications and information technologies. This includes 20 years in research and innovation collaborative programmes, both in industry and in national and regional funding public agencies. He has participated in many conferences and events all over the world.
Jacques is Senior Project Manager at AUSTRALO since July 2020. After more than 10 years at the head of INTERINNOV, he decided to hand over the management to his colleague Jose Gonzalez, and the result is a new incorporated company called AUSTRALO. With INTERINNOV, Jacques participated in many international projects.
Jacques is currently a member of the Steering Board of NetworldEurope, where he also chairs the NetWorld2020 SME Working Group. There, he helps promote the visibility of SMEs in domains related to 5G/6G, and telecommunications at large.
Jacques Magen was also involved in other large initiatives in the past. He chaired during five years the FIWARE Mundus Committee, that is responsible for deploying the FIWARE open-source platform at international level. He was involved with the EUREKA European initiative between 1999 and 2018, mostly as Chairman of Celtic, an R&D programme dedicated to telecommunication networks and services. Jacques also served as a member of the Board of the 5G Infrastructure Association between 2016 and 2021. He was invited several times as an EC and EUREKA expert.
Dritan Kaleshi
With over 20 year’s experience as a technologist and researcher in communication networks, distributed system design and data interoperability in IoT, Dritan is Director of 5G Technology at Digital Catapult, where he has established and leads the 5G Programme in Future Networks. An acknowledged thought leader in his field Dritan has published over 70 papers, holds three patents and has edited two international standards on interoperability, and is often invited to speak on advanced digital infrastructure. He has represented the UK in international standardization bodies and served on/chaired international conferences and technical committees. He joined Digital Catapult from University of Bristol, where he led a 15-strong research team, strategically combining research with industrial collaboration, making a wide range of contributions and practical implementations in networking, interoperability, smart energy, cities and digital health, including large scale projects like SPHERE and Bristol Is Open demonstrators. His focus is on national 5G coordination and how to best support startup and scaleup innovation and technical advances on new 5G network architectures, network and service orchestration, edge computing and IoT support.
B2: Protecting & Sharing Intellectual Property
Tuesday, 22 June 2021, 10:50am – 12:10pm (EDT)
Organizer: Monika Paape-Miyoshi, École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS)
Description: It is undeniable that artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms are at the heart of a fast-growing number of new telecommunication technologies. With our panel of experts, we will explore a variety of IP protection strategies that include copyrights, trade secrets and patents, as well as their applicability to data and AI technologies.
Panelists:
Roger Miller, Senior IP Director at Axelys, a technology transfer company for university innovations
Jean-Nicolas Delage, Lawyer at Fasken, he has accompanied many Universities and startup companies in negotiating IP agreements
Frédéric Nabki, ETS professor and startup founder of Spark Mycrosystems inc.
Varghese Baby, Patent Agent and IP Director at Ciena
Jean-Yves Pikulik, Patent Agent and IP Director at Genetec
Bios:
Monika Paape-Miyoshi
Monika Paape-Miyoshi is a Research Advisor at the École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), she principally manages the ÉTS intellectual property portfolio and negotiates research and IP license agreements with various industrial and institutional partners. Monika is a registered Patent Agent in Canada and in the United States, she has experience drafting and prosecuting patent applications in the fields of telecommunications, software, electrical, mechanical and biomedical engineering. Before shifting to Intellectual Property, Monika was a Software Developer at a multinational telecommunication company.
Roger Miller
Roger Miller has over 15 years experience in developing early stage technology, start-ups and intellectual property. He spent 12 years at UBC’s technology transfer office working with faculty, students, and investors growing innovative technologies, finding industrial partners, and building new ventures. More recently he joined the National Bank of Canada to build an innovation and intellectual property group, focusing on AI and big data. He is now a director at Quebec’s new technology transfer society, Axelys, where he works with university technologies, founders and innovators from across Québec. Axelys’ mission is to contribute to Quebec's economic and social prosperity by accelerating the development, commercialisation and transfer of high-potential innovations stemming from public research. Roger specialises in information technology, AI, and mechanical, electrical and civil engineering and medical devices.
Jean-Yves Pikulik
Jean-Yves Pikulik is a US and Canadian Patent Agent with 15 years of experience in the tech sector. His work over the years has bridged a diverse range of business contexts. He has worked in private practice at both a Tier 1 firm at the service of some of Canada’s largest tech players, and as an independent practitioner where his client base included a mix of start-ups, individual inventors, and medium-sized businesses. Outside of private practice, Jean-Yves has also worked in house at a small upstart tech company where he focussed on patenting, standardisation efforts, and the implementation of a profitable patent licensing program. In recent years, Jean-Yves has been director of Intellectual Property at Genetec, the world’s leading IP video surveillance and access control provider where he manages the development of the patent portfolio as well as patent litigation.
B3: Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility
Tuesday, 15 June 2021, 10:30am – 11:50am (EDT)
Organizer and Moderator: Charles Despins, École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS)
Description: Sustainability is no longer a branding exercise but is now a core strategic imperative for corporations around the world. In particular, the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, while driving major transformations in the way we live, work and play, offers tangible paths to achieve sustainability-related objectives. This panel will explore how telecom operators, both individually and collectively, are tackling this challenge. The development of standards, notably related to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, will also be addressed.
Panelists:
Catherine Goyer, BCE and Bell Canada
Jaafar Elmirghani, University of Leeds, UK
Louise Krug, BT
Luis Neves, CEO of Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSi)
Bios:
Charles Despins
Charles Despins’ career has spanned, over more than 35 years, both the academic and industrial segments of the information technology and communications sector. In addition to having been a faculty member of INRS-Telecommunications (Université du Québec) in Montreal, he later held senior management positions in the private sector including senior director of technology development at Microcell Telecommunications as well as vice-president and chief technology officer of Bell Nordiq Group. He also worked as a consultant for wireless network deployments in India and China. After leaving his full-time academic position in 1996, he remained active in research as an adjunct professor at INRS.
From 2003 to 2016, he was also founding President & CEO of Prompt, a university-industry research consortium which is a now highly recognized collaborative research actor in Québec. He rejoined academia in 2016 and is currently professor of electrical engineering after serving as vice-president – research & partnerships and Dean of Research at École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), Université du Québec.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from McGill University in Montreal, as well as M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees, also in electrical engineering, from Carleton University in Ottawa. He was the recipient of the (1993) Best Paper of the Year award in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. He was named in 2005 a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and was the recipient in 2006 of the Outstanding Engineer Award from IEEE Canada for (citation) "excellence in the electrical engineering profession in both academia and industry”.
He has been the co-Chair of the IEEE Sustainable ICT initiative since its inception and a strong advocate on this theme for more than a decade.
Catherine Goyer
As Director, Corporate responsibility and Environment, Catherine leads a team responsible to plan, develop and manage Bell’s responsibility and environment programs to ensure compliance, management of risks, meeting stakeholder expectations and creating value for the company. Her key responsibilities include energy, climate change, wastes, product stewardship, contaminated properties and responsible procurement. As part of her functions, she is also accountable to maintain the ISO 14001 certification and reporting of the company’s performance, including issuing an annual Corporate Responsibility Report.
Recognized for her passion and professionalism, Catherine has been working in the environmental field for more than twenty years. First in the manufacturing business and now at Bell. She has successfully lead projects to improve environmental practices, employees’ engagement and relations with stakeholders and to integrate sustainability in the day-to-day business. She is an active member of two non-profit organizations.
Catherine is a civil engineer and holds a Master degree in civil engineering specialized in environment.
Jaafar Elmirghani
Prof. Jaafar Elmirghani is Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of IET and Fellow of Institute of Physics and Director of the Institute of Communication and Power Networks, University of Leeds, UK. He has provided outstanding leadership in a number of large research projects, secured over £30m in grants and was PI of the £6m EPSRC Intelligent Energy Aware Networks (INTERNET) Programme Grant, 2010-2016. He is CoChair of the IEEE Sustainable ICT initiative, a pan IEEE Societies initiative responsible for Green ICT activities across IEEE, 2012-present.
He was awarded in international competition the IEEE Comsoc 2005 Hal Sobol award, 3 IEEE Comsoc outstanding technical achievement and service awards (2009, 2015, 2020), the 2015 GreenTouch 1000x award, IET Optoelectronics 2016 Premium Award for work on energy efficiency and shared the 2016 Edison Award in the collective disruption category with a team of 6 from GreenTouch for joint work on the GreenMeter. He was elected Fellow of IEEE for contributions to energy efficient communications.
His work led to 5 IEEE standards with a focus on network, cloud and fog computing and energy efficiency, where he currently heads the work group responsible for IEEE P1925.1, IEEE P1926.1, IEEE P1927.1, IEEE P1928.1 and IEEE P1929.1 standards; this resulting in significant impact through industrial and academic uptake.
He was invited by the Royal Society, with colleagues to prepare a report on the role of digital technologies in achieving net zero emissions. The influential report: “Digital technology and the planet: Harnessing computing to achieve net zero” was published on 3 December 2020.
The report was widely publicised in news media outlets, including for example the BBC: “Ditch high definition and new tech to fight climate change.”
He is Area Editor of IEEE JSAC series on Machine Learning for Communications and is PI of the EPSRC £6.6m Terabit Bidirectional Multiuser Optical Wireless System (TOWS) for 6G LiFi, 2019-2024. He has published over 550 technical papers, and has research interests in energy efficiency, optimisation, machine learning, communication networks, cloud and fog computing.
Louise Krug
Louise Krug is the technical lead for BT’s Applied Research Sustainability work. Her role is to define, develop and drive concepts through research and into the implementation teams for successful deployment. She has been at the forefront of developing BT’s major cross-platform energy model which helps the business understand how, why and where it uses electricity. This has been used drive major network changes leading to energy use reductions. Her research benefits from a multidisciplinary approach, using physics, engineering, data science and human behaviours to identify solutions and drive change. Previous research topics have included 3G and fixed mobile convergence, agents based and the development of high power lasers for transatlantic communications systems. She enjoys the inspiration gained from working on collaborative research projects across industry and academia. She has published over 40 papers and book chapters.
Luis Neves
Luis Neves is CEO of the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) since 2017. Prior to that, from 2008-2017, Luis held the position of GeSI Chairman. Under Luis' leadership, GeSI has become a globally recognized “thought industry leader” organisation in the field of ICT- sustainability with strong focus on the enabling role and positive contribution of digital technologies to climate protection.
Prior to GeSI, Luis worked at Deutsche Telekom for over 15 years holding positions such as Head of Sustainable Development and Environment, VP of Corporate Responsibility and Chief Sustainability and Climate Protection Officer. Luis has also held positions and played relevant roles at European and international levels in organisations, such as the UN Global Compact Lead Group, Econsense -the German Sustainability Association, World Resources Forum Association and UNFCCC Momentum for Change Initiative.
Luis was born in Portugal and obtained a degree in History from the University of Lisbon.
B4: Smart Cities: Technology Integration and Regulatory Issues
Tuesday, 22 June 2021, 09:30am – 10:50am (EDT)
Organizer and Moderator: Stéphane Goyette, Digital Transformation & Business Model Innovation Expert, FFWDigital & Former Chief Digital & Smart City Officer – City of Montréal
Panelists:
Guillaume Lavoie, Public Policy Expert and former City Councilor – City of Montréal
Stéphane Guidoin, Director, Montreal Urban Innovation Lab, City of Montréal
Marc-Antoine Ducas, CEO, Netlift (carpool and parking platform startup)
Description: We have often spoken of the "flaws" in public policies and regulatory frameworks of states or cities as so many opportunities for imaginative entrepreneurs to create disruptive businesses (think of Airbnb or Uber for example). But the flip side is that much often, these same public policies do not keep pace with the increasingly rapid pace of changing technological innovations or business models in such a way that they constitute a constraint or even a brake on their development. Imagine, just a little, the spaghetti of regulations of all kinds, from local, regional or national authorities, faced by those who want to test, in the public space, a prototype of an autonomous vehicle, for example, in an urban environment. Hell! Our three panelists have had to deal or are currently dealing with this type of context and will share their observations, the lessons they have learned from them as well as some possible solutions, both for those who want to innovate and for public decision-makers.
Bios:
Stéphane Goyette
Over the course of his 35-year career, he has occupied a number of high-level positions, including President, EVP, CMO and VP Digital in both local and international organizations. He has successfully completed the digital transformation of organizations in a wide variety of sectors, from retail (Lyreco) to telecommunications (PSINet, Bell, Cogeco), from aeronautics (CAE) to media (Astral), internet technologies (Inter.net) to public administration (City of Montreal). Today he heads the consulting services company FFWDigital, specializing in the digital transformation and Business Model Innovation of organizations looking to optimize the efficiency of their operations or accelerate their growth. His experience in general management, strategic planning, human-centered design, and open innovation has allowed him to develop an ability to connect the dots and help organizations, big and small, find breakthrough solutions to complex business issues.
Among the accomplishments of which I’m most proud is leading Montreal’s Smart City initiative, and seeing the city receive the distinction of ICF (Intelligent Community Forum) Community of the Year in 2016.
Guillaume Lavoie
Public Policy Expert and former City Councilor – City of Montréal
Stéphane Guidoin
Director, Montreal Urban Innovation Lab, City of Montréal
Marc-Antoine Ducas
CEO, Netlift (carpool and parking platform startup)
B5: Emerging Entrepreneurship
Tuesday, 15 June 2021, 10:30am – 11:50am (EDT)
Organizer: Richard Chenier, Centech
Panelists:
Frederic Nabki, Co-founder and CTO of Spark Microsystems
Nick Kepler, COO of Silicon Catalyst
JF Gauthier, CEO of Startup Genome
Description: The startup world is entering a new era: the deeptech era. How to take advantage of this wave where science and engineering will take up a lot of buzz. What are the challenges associated with this type of entrepreneurship? Faced with these challenges, is it better to license your intellectual property or develop products with marketable potential?
Bio:
Richard Chenier
CEO of Centech, a world-class leading incubator dedicated to deeptech start-ups. Mr. Chenier plays an important role in the Quebec and Canadian startup ecosystem.
Mr. Chenier holds a BA in social psychology and a Master in organizational communication. During his career, Mr. Chenier was shareholder in two businesses, one of which he co-founded. He was also the leader of the largest multidisciplinary team of trainers dedicated to professional development within Quebec industry. He also trained more than 10,000 managers around human management skills. He is still one of the speakers of the Management Leadership Institute in the province of Quebec.
Mr. Chénier was nominated as one of the 50 quebecers who will create the extraordinary in 2018 by Urbania magazine.
