Agenda

Eve is the Past President of African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya (2016-2019). As ARSO Champion for Eastern and Southern Africa and Chairman of the Africa Standardisation Strategy & Road Map for Africa 4th Industrial Revolution (A4IR) that is being spearheaded by the AU continental standardisation body ARSO in partnership with IEEE-SA (USA), Eve actively promotes global best practices, business excellence and standardisation of developing countries under the AfCFTA single market. As a member of ISO DEVCO Chairman’s Advisory group, Dr Gadzikwa has enjoyed an illustrious professional career, which spans over 25 years in the public and private sectors. Eve was appointed to her current executive position as Director General and Board Company Secretary for the Standards Association of Zimbabwe in September 2008. During her tenure at the helm of SAZ, Eve has continued to gain extensive industry experience and leads a diverse team of professionals. Over the past 11 years, Eve has represented her organisation with distinction on national, regional and international platforms to engender brand excellence. Eve has established broad contacts in government and business community to champion excellence in Standards, good Governance and Business Ethics. Eve is a qualified and experienced medical laboratory scientist (Bacteriologist) and is the past Chairman of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) and Institute of Zimbabwe (IoDZ). Eve was elected onto ISO Council in 2020 for period 2021-2023. Eve was appointed as a member of the IEEE SA Strategic and Emerging Standards Committee (SESCom) for calendar year 2021.

Dr. Julio Romero Agüero, Vice President, Strategy & Business Innovation & Executive Advisor, Quanta Technology Expert. Dr. Romero Agüero has over 20 years of experience working with electric utilities and regulatory boards. He has developed solutions for numerous electric utilities in the USA, Canada, Latin America, The Caribbean and Asia. His experience includes full P&L responsibility, business and technical leadership of utility and consulting projects in the areas of technology strategy, emerging technologies, innovation, planning, reliability, regulation, operations, engineering, asset management, Smart Grid, automation, renewable energy, integration of distributed energy resources (distributed generation, distributed energy storage, microgrids) and plug-in electric vehicles.

Dr. Romero Agüero is former Commissioner of the National Energy Commission of Honduras, Chair of the IEEE Distribution Subcommittee, Chair of the IEEE Working Group on Distributed Resources Integration, Editor of IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Member of the Advisory Committee of DistribuTECH, and Senior Member of the IEEE. He is the author of over 60 technical papers and presentations, and is a frequent speaker and instructor in industry events and training courses.

Rajesh Kunnath is a seasoned hardware engineer with more than two decades of experience spanning a wide array of electronics specialities from RF design to power supply design. He is the founder of a design services firm based in Chennai India that offers board design services and product design services in electronics.

Rajesh Kunnath is an IEEE standards expert as well as an IEC standards expert. He is a passionate advocate of LVDC (Low Voltage DC). He is part of the Indian National Committee - ETD50 of the Bureau of Indian Standards where he was involved in the drafting of an Indian Standard "Guidelines for 48V distribution" for the Bureau of Indian Standards. He is the Secretary of the IEEE P2030.10.1 Working Group for the creation of a standard for Electricity Access with a 48V DC supply. He is also part of an IEC Systems Committee SyC LVDC and is participating in Working Group 1 which is also focused on the development of standards for low-voltage electricity access.

Maike Luiken, PhD, SMIEEE, IEEE-HKN, is 2021 IEEE Vice President – Member & Geographic Activities. She served as President of IEEE Canada in 2018 - 2019 and, in 2018, as Chair, Policy Track, IEEE Internet Initiative. Currently Adjunct Research Professor at Western University, she was the founding Director of the Bluewater Technology Access Centre (now called Lambton Manufacturing Innovation Centre) following eight years as Dean at Lambton College with a number of portfolios: School of Technology and Applied Sciences, Business Development, Sustainable Development and Applied Research. Her strategic leadership in the development of the applied research & innovation capacity and portfolio led to Lambton College becoming one of the top Research Colleges in Canada.

Her areas of interest and expertise span diverse technical areas from ICT, energy and water to advanced manufacturing and nanotechnologies as well as technology design principles, ethics in design and policy associated with their implementation. She has particular interest in how progress in one area, e.g. in ICT, enables advances in other disciplines and in how deployment of various technologies contributes – or not - to achieving sustainable development.

Maike Luiken has experience in the public and private sectors in Canada and has worked in the USA and Germany. She owns a technology consulting practice and is a co-owner of a start-up company.