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Biographies

Paul Berriman Group Chief Technology Officer, PCCW Mr. Paul Berriman is the Group Chief Technology Officer, and responsible for Technology Strategy and Development, a position which he held since May 2007, having joined PCCW in 2002. Mr. Berriman is primarily responsible for leading the Group's product and technology roadmap and strategic development as well as Data Analytics. Prior to his present appointment, he had held positions as Head of Strategic Market Development and SVP, Strategy and Marketing. Mr. Berriman has over 25 years of experience in telecommunications, media and convergence. In 2009 he was recognised by the IPTV World Forum with their Special Merit Award for Outstanding Industry Contribution. In 2008 he was listed as one of the Global Telecoms Business Magazine's top 100 "most influential persons in telecoms". Prior to joining PCCW in 2002, Mr. Berriman was the Managing Director of Arthur D. Little in Hong Kong, a management consultancy firm, and was involved in telecommunications consultancy projects globally. Previously he also held executive, technical, engineering and operations management roles in several major Hong Kong service providers including the Hong Kong Telephone Company and Hong Kong Telecom CSL. Mr. Berriman graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electro-acoustics from the University of Salford in the UK in July 1979, and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Hong Kong in November 1985. He became a Chartered Engineer in June 1986 and is a full member of The Institution of Engineering and Technology. He is Chairman of a Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) Working Group, a board member of the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN Ltd.) and an independent non-executive director of Spark New Zealand (f.k.a. Telecom Corporation of New Zealand) having joined the Board in December 2011. He is also a non-executive director of mobile operator, Rain Ltd., in South Africa. He was also a member of OFTA's Telecommunications Standards Advisory Committee for many years.
Chimwemwe Chikwana Brands Manager, Nyasa Big Bullets MVNO Mr Chimwemwe Chikwana is the Brands Development Manager for Nyasa Manufacturing Company Ltd (NMC) and part of the team responsible for the Commercialisation drive of the Nyasa Big Bullets Football Club. NMC became the sponsor of the Nyasa Big Bullets in 2015 and eventually took ownership of the team in 2018 now Chimwemwe is primarily responsible for the project to expand the Nyasa Big Bullets Brand into a successful MVNO. Prior to joining Nyasa Manufacturing Company Ltd in 2016, Chimwemwe worked as a Personal Banker at NBS Bank from 2012 before joining Samsung Malawi where he was the Marketing and Key Account Manager in 2014, after a year Chimwemwe joined SABMiller Chibuku as Marketing and Corporate Affairs Manager before moving on to Beta TV where he was the Media & Marketing Consultant/T.V Presenter. Chimwemwe holds a BA in Film and Media Production from the University of Cape Town and is a Filmmaker and Master of Ceremonies in his free time.
Anton Christopher Executive Director, LycaMobile South Africa Anton Christopher has been the Director of LycaMobile South Africa since Feb 2016 and Executive Director since October 2016. He has previously worked as a senior program manager for more than 10 years and project manager for more than 19 years. He has worked in both IT and Network projects in Fixed and Mobile Telecommunications environment and as an Y2K project manager in the Aviation environment. He obtained his MBA from the University of Witwatersrand with his research focus on the opportunities and challenges for Chinese Multinationals in the South African Telecommunications industry. He currently doing a PhD at University of Witwatersrand. Anton is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) U.S.A and a Chartered IT Professional (CITP) UK, and a chartered Fellow (FBCS). In addition, he is a Member of subcommittee responsible for the PMI Portfolio Management standards Third edition. More recently, he chaired the Telecom Fraud Control and Revenue Assurance Forum conference in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2017. His specialties include Project Management, Telecom Billing, IT management, Software development, Agile Project Management (Kanban), Projects Quality Assurance.
Mohamad Damush Group CEO, Telecel Global Group Mohamad Damush is a successful entrepreneur with a proven business track record that spans internationally. He serves as the Group CEO for Telecel Global which owns a leading mobile operator in Central Africa, MVNE in South Africa, and several service provider companies that were originally launched in London and have since developed globally; Telecel Global offers range of services to the telecommunication industry and the valuable “Telecel" brand rights across the MENA and Africa. Thanks to his vision, strong leadership and experience, Mohamad has successfully launched a multitude of successful companies, where he continues to serve as Board member or Chairman respectively. Born in Africa, Mohamad has special passion towards doing business in that continent. He seeks opportunities and development, and has always drawn special attention on community development and enrichment through startup initiative programs.
Simon Davies Owner and Director, SD Industries Simon has had many years of experience in the telecoms industry in roles ranging from technical through to purely commercial, from fixed to mobile, from hardware through to software and SaaS, in solutions ranging from large prepaid MNOs through MVNO and MVNEs and now including FinTech applied to mobile networks. He works as a consultant specialising in Product Marketing, Sales Management and PreSales.
Karmanie Govender CEO and Founder, DTTech Karmanie has had exposure to various business cultures and widely divergent professional people, this ensures she is comfortable in working for a wide variety of organisations and industries. She founded Dreamtime Technologies in 2008, which has been a dynamic force in the provision of business and technology services to the private and public sectors throughout Africa. Karmanie’s 15 years of experience has included international exposure in Africa, Europe and the USA. Vertical industry expertise includes telecommunications (fixed and mobile), banking, Enterprise Information Management as well as security. Her Telecoms experience stretches from multiple innovative projects across Africa.
Deepak Gusain Director – Business Development Mobility, IoT and Collaboration Services Middle East, Central Asia and Africa Tata Communications Deepak is the Director and Head of Business Development for Mobility, IoT and Collaboration Services for Middle East, Central Asia and Africa region for Tata Communications, a part of US$ 108 billion Tata Group of Companies. In this role, he is responsible for developing new initiatives and business across mobility, IoT, cloud, security and managed services for enterprises, service providers and mobile operators in the region. Deepak has more than 15 years of experience in the telecommunications industry spanning across various functions such as engineering, pre-sales and business development with specific focus on emerging markets of India, MENA, Sub Saharan Africa and CIS region. He has extensive experience in solution architecture, network services, security, data center hosting, cloud services, voice and collaboration. He has been working with Tata Communications for the last 10 years. Originally from India and now based in Dubai UAE, Deepak earned his Bachelor degree in Computer Science from IP University in New Delhi. He also has an advanced level certification in Cisco data, voice and telepresence design. He is an avid cricketer, a fitness enthusiast and a frequent traveler throughout the region. https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepak-gusain-a12ba012/
Stephen Ibaraki Social Entrepreneur and Futurist - Chair REDDS Capital With more than 100 top executive roles, global lifetime achievement and innovation awards and recognitions, a few of executive chairman, investor, venture capitalist, and serial entrepreneur Stephen Ibaraki's positions include: Practitioner Board Association for Computing Machinery past chair; founding chair Global Industry Council and vice-chair board IP3 International Federation for Information Processing; top 5 blogger IDG-IT World (Canada); founding managing general partner REDDS Capital (Venture Investment Partners) and founding chairman investment committee REDDS VC Fund; founder technology advisory board, Yintech Investment Holdings Ltd. (NASDAQ); founding member Beyond Initiative (VW/Audi AI Think Tank); founding chairman outreach UN ITU "ICT Discovery" Journal; founder and chairman outreach UN ITU AI for Good Global Summit with XPRIZE Foundation, 20 UN Agency partners, 47 media; keynote at the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE Austin USA); keynote UNIDO General Conference Industry 4.0 (Vienna); organizer and host speaker Wuzhen Summit World Internet Conference AI Forum (WIC: 1500 CEOs/leaders); speaker UN GA Second Committee & ECOSOC Joint Session (New York, Future of Everything); founding chairman Technology Advisory Council Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) FinTech Ideas Festival (200 CEOs/Execs, FSR: $92.7 trillion managed assets, $1.2 trillion annual revenue); founding chair advisory board and keynote Digital Africa on Industry/Nation 4.0 (2016, 2017); invited advisor on Nation 4.0 and board member within IEEE; 14 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Global Awards (Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, "We recognize and value your exceptional contributions and commitment to technical communities worldwide. By sharing your real world expertise and technical skills, you demonstrate outstanding technical community leadership. Thank you.") and 3 global gold awards; 3 founding Fellow awards; ... There is much more information as nominated founding fellow, past board chair and president government-chartered Canadian Information Processing Society http://www.cips.ca/stephen-ibaraki." LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/sibaraki
Bilel Jamoussi Chief of the Study Groups Department, ITU An established and accomplished engineer and manager; multilingual standardization expert and holder of 22 patents, Tunisian born Dr. Bilel Jamoussi is currently Chief of the Study Groups Department of ITU secretariat’s Standardization Bureau in Geneva Switzerland. Holder of his ITU post since 2010, he has led the coordination of the bureau’s standards making activities into a new era characterized by the need for increased collaboration with vertical sectors such as the healthcare, car, aviation, utility and banking sectors. Key achievements under his tenure have been important new standards in the fields of e-health, multimedia, smart grid, broadband and green ICTs while effectively managing staff, projects, and resources. Prior to 2010, Jamoussi worked for Nortel for 15 years in Canada and then in the United States where he held several leadership positions. During his time at Nortel he was granted and filed US patents in diverse areas including packet, optical, wireless, and quality of service. As Nortel's representative to the one laptop per child (OLPC) initiative he contributed to the availability of low-cost computers in support of education in developing countries and led the development of the Wireless Mesh networking used in the OLPC device that was to become the IEEE 802.11s standard. A previous participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) he authored a number of Request for Comments (RFCs). As an IEEE Senior Member he was elected to the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Board of Governors (BOG) and the IEEE-SA Corporate Advisory Group (CAG). He served on the IEEE Standards Education Committee and was the Technical Liaison from IEEE-SA to ITU-T and ITU-D. He holds a BSc, MSc and PhD in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is fluent in Arabic, French, and English and speaks some Spanish and German. Email: bilel.jamoussi@itu.int
Anton Kotze Director, Ellipsis Consulting Anton Kotze specialises in legal and regulatory issues relating to ICT. Anton’s experience of practising law and being involved in the management of large and start-up ISP businesses gives him a unique blend of telecommunications law and general commercial experience. Anton acts for large electronic communications infrastructure providers, local and international satellite companies and ISPs. He advises on regulatory issues and transactions at all levels of the electronic communications value chain.
Phathizwe Malinga Acting CEO, SqwidNet As the Acting CEO of SqwidNet, Phathizwe Malinga is responsible for building an IoT connectivity business in South Africa in partnership with International IoT giant SIGFOX. In addition to his CEO role, he will continue overlooking the solutions division for SqwidNet, a fully owned subsidiary of Dark Fibre Africa. Malinga has made a natural transition into the role of leading SqwidNet because of the various leadership roles he has fulfilled over the years. He is no stranger to the role of a strategist, as he consulted with both Max Healthcare and Life Healthcare Group in his previous position with the organisation. He has been involved in the information technology and telecommunication industry for over two decades, having held senior management level positions. Before joining SqwidNet, Malinga was the Head of Application Strategy at Life Healthcare Group, and he was in charge of the IT Application strategy and Software Development for the group. Phathizwe completed his Executive MBA from the Graduate School of Business, Cape Town. He continues to guest lecture with the university and he sits on the board of Bizmod Consulting. Malinga is a Singularity University Faculty Candidate.
Amine Mcharek Programme Coordinator of the Bridging the Standardization Gap Programme, ITU Amine received his PhD from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). His research focused on the impact of innovation on economic development in the context of developing countries. Prior to that, he received an M.S in electrical engineering and an M.A in IT management and policy. His professional experiences span in areas such as engineering, public sector projects management and coordination, with responsibilities in advisory areas, consultancy, as well as International Cooperation development, and active participation in several ICT global developmental projects in more than a twenty countries. He acted as an international consultant for several private companies and government agencies as well as international institution and development banks such as Samsung, Netmundial, African Development Bank, ITU. He is now Programme Coordinator in the International Telecommunication Union on Standardization on Economic and Policy issues and Bridging the Standardization Gap (BSG).
Ntsibane Ntlatlapa Competency Area Manager, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of South Africa Dr Ntsibane Ntlatlapa is a Competency Area Manager at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of South Africa. The competency area that he leads has key competencies in network planning, design and optimization; spectrum and radio propagation modelling; image and video processing and optimization; network analytics and softwarization. It carries out applied research and develops appropriate technology platforms for transfer into the South African socio-economic landscape in these and closely related fields. He has over 25 years of experience in lecturing and research at universities in Lesotho, Nigeria, USA and South Africa and continues to supervise postgraduate students in several universities in South Africa. He also served as a vice chair for the ITU-T Multimedia study group (Study group 16) during the 2013-2016 study period. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Auburn University in the USA.
Andy Press CEO, b-Things Andy has been in the telecoms industry for more than twenty five years. He has worked across a variety of global roles covering sales, marketing and strategy, as well as multiple verticals including MVNE/MVNO, ISP, Mobile handsets, satellite and Fixed telecoms. Andy is now CEO at b-Things, a Belgium based IoT platform provider.
Pascal Prot CEO, Legos Gratuated from both ENSEA Engineering school & the entrepreneurship program of ESSEC, Pascal started his career in the early 90’s in the SFO Bay area when internet was a geeky text service, to set-up an online portal for consumer market. Back in France, Pascal trailblazed the market of international telecom services, as part of a common subsidiary of France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, specialized in outsourcing managed services for Top 500 corporations. Back to consulting with AT Kearney, for a quick reality check, Pascal then joined the early operational team built by Patrick Drahi to kick off the first triple play bundle offer (TV, Broadband Internet, Telephony) on a French Cable network. In the early 2000’s, Pascal created Legos to help broadband operators in Europe (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, The Netherlands), to develop their broadband services. Then Pascal transformed Legos as the first Fixed & Mobile European operator with 100 % Convergent, IMS/SIP based Infrastructure for Voice & Messaging services. Legos is now a fully declared operator in over 15 european states, with technical operations in France, Germany, UK and Asia. Legos runs its own Fixed and Mobile infrastructure and interconnections for its unique white labelled service as Fixed & MVN Operator, Agregator and Enabler. Legos has grown 50% per annum over the last three years and serves over 500.000 end users.
Renato Andre de Andrade Reis Member of the Board, CreditPilot Renato is an entrepreneur, consultant, expert in Telecommunications products and services. With the experience of working closely with major telecom operators such as Telefonica, Orange, Vodafone, TIM, China Unicom, Hutchinson, America Moviles and many others, as well as the living experience of deploying solutions in all continents, Renato's network spans the globe. Working globally also allows Renato to foresee trends, pioneering several of the now mass market products vital in the industry.
Neil Sahota World Wide Business Development Leader, IBM Watson Neil Sahota (萨冠军) is an IBM Master Inventor and World Wide Business Development Leader in the IBM Watson Group. With over 15+ years of experience in business, he works with Global Fortune 500 clients, government organizations, and high growth business partners to ideate next generation products/solutions powered by Watson. Parts of Neil’s responsibilities include identifying target markets, developing business cases, and creating the market launch strategy. Prior to this role, he was a Thought Leader Consultant and Practice Leader in IBM Global Business Services where he was responsible for the sales and delivery of complex consulting engagements spanning business strategy, new product development, revenue optimization, process improvement, and business and system integration. His work experience spans multiple industries including healthcare, life sciences, retail, travel and transportation, energy and utilities, automotive, telecommunications, media/communication, and government. Moreover, Neil is one of the few IBMers selected for IBM's Corporate Service Corps leadership program that pairs leaders with NGOs to perform community driven economic development projects. For his assignment, Neil lived and worked in Ningbo, China where he partnered with Chinese corporate CEOs to create a leadership development program. In addition to his professional work, Neil actively volunteers his time to help nonprofits and foundations with event management, fund raising, grant reviews, and site visits. Neil is also a dedicated member of the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Alumni Association and a former member on the UCI Alumni Board of Directors and Executive Committee. As the former VP of Programs, he developed the Anteater MeetUps, Virtual Roundtables, and cross-school partnerships for joint events. Neil also serves on the Board of Directors for the Orange County Marathon and actively supports their work with the OC Kids program in fighting childhood obesity.
Futoshi Sasaki Deputy General Manager, Strategy and Business Development, MVNO, Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ) Mr. Sasaki was one of the founding members of IIJ's MVNO project in 2007 and has been engaging in its corporate and personal MVNO services ever since. He is now in charge of developing IIJ's MVNO business from the strategic aspect. In addition, he is one of the leading members of MVNO Committee of the Telecom Services Association, the Japanese MVNO industry group. Also, he plays the key role in IIJ, an associate member of ITU-T SG3
Reshaad Sha CEO, Liquid Telecom South Africa Reshaad Sha is the CEO of Liquid Telecom South Africa; a pan-African connectivity and digital service provider that offers services to telecom operators, governments and businesses across the African continent. Before joining Liquid Telecom, Reshaad was the founder and CEO of SqwidNet, where he led the team that was entrusted with building an IoT connectivity business in South Africa in partnership with the world’s largest IoT operator, Sigfox. Concurrently Reshaad served as the Chief Strategy Officer at DFA for 2013 to 2018 where led the companies strategy by transforming the business from an infrastructure company to a telecommunications services provider. Reshaad has held various director-level positions in the telecommunications industry at LogicaCMG, Protek, Lifetree and Cisco. This afforded him the opportunity to work closely with many leading telecommunications operators in the USA, South Africa, across the Middle-East and Africa, Russia, Turkey, and South East Asia. Reshaad holds a national diploma in information technology from the Durban University of Technology and Technikon South Africa, an executive MBA from the University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business and is a recent graduate from Harvard Business School on advanced management.
Tim Sherwood Vice President, Business Development, Mobility & IoT Solutions,Tata Communications Tim Sherwood is Vice President, Business Development, Mobility & IoT Solutions at Tata Communications. He is responsible for shaping and driving Tata Communications’ market development strategy for global mobility and IOT services associated with the MOVE mobile network enablement platform. In this role, Tim works with the sales, marketing, product management and services development teams to achieve the annual revenue plan for mobile products as well as to bring to market new business opportunities to enable affordable and consistent cross-border mobile communications, collaboration and customer engagement. Prior to his current role, Tim was Vice President of Service Provider Strategy, where he was responsible for coordinating the long-term strategy and annual go-to-market plans for the Global Carrier Solutions sales segment. Previously, Tim was Vice President of Market Development within the Global Voice Solutions business unit of Tata Communications, where he led the creation of strategic sourcing and managed voice service offers, including negotiating flagship strategic agreements with British Telecom and gotalk Australia. Before that, Tim was the Director of Market Management in the Voice Commercial Operations team. In this role, Tim managed the voice trading platform, including functions such as pricing, routing, market analysis and deal governance for the company’s voice bilateral trading agreements. Tim has a B.A. in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College in Vermont.
Fred Werner Senior Communications & Membership Officer, ITU Fred is a seasoned Association Management professional with a passion for telecommunications specializing in strategic communications, community building, and international relations. Fred is currently responsible for Communications and Membership for ITU's standardization bureau. Previously, he was the Communications & Program Director for ETIS – The Global IT Association for Telecommunications. Fred is deeply involved with innovation, digital transformation, financial inclusion, 5G and AI via numerous ICT industry projects, working groups, and events he has developed. He has also been credited with helping the telecom industry create a pan-European community of cyber-security experts. Fred has a B.A. in Business & Human Resources Management, a Minor in Communications, an MBA in International Business and a Technical MBA in Managing Telecoms Technology. Previously he worked in the Conformity Assessment sector and was involved in numerous EU development projects. Fred is an avid global traveler and has lived in many diverse countries including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Senegal, Turkey, Austria, Philippines, Switzerland, and Hungary giving him a unique global viewpoint.