Roger Fujii has been an IEEE volunteer for 35 years. He is President of Fujii Systems, a executive management consulting firm to major corporations for large systems development. As Vice President/General Manager (retired) at Northrop Grumman, led a $1.086B engineering division responsible for achieving financial objectives for over 100 contracts, managing a 2,200 employee workforce, and delivering (R&D, engineering, manufacturing) specialized satellite and aircraft communication systems (F22/F35).

He developed the industry standard on the methodology for certifying critical software systems for all US nuclear weapon system software (Minutemen, Peacekeeper, Tomahawk Cruise Missile), radiation therapy devices and NASA manned space missions.

He was a guest professor at Xiamen University, China. Lectured at UCLA and Sacramento State University.

He published papers/books (chapter author), developed international standards, managed conferences, and served in IEEE/Society leadership and special committees. Served as 2016 Computer Society (CS) President, CS 1st Vice President, CS Vice President of Standards Activity Board, and CS Board of Governors. Served as IEEE Division VIII Director to Board of Directors. Lead the US Delegation to ISO/IEC International Software Engineering standards. Chairs IEEE Std 1012, Standard for System, Software and Hardware Verification and Validation. Currently chairs the IEEE Financial Transparency Group analyzing financial transparency issues and concerns.

Fujii is an IEEE Fellow, Golden Core member, and graduate of UC Berkeley (BS/MS EECS) with thesis on “Optimizing Algorithm for Pattern Recognition of Handwritten Characters.” Have MBA certifications from Harvard, UCLA and Darden (Virginia). Served on National Academy of Sciences National Research Council - “Oversight of Space Shuttle Flight Software.”

Alex Acero is Sr. Director at Apple leading speech recognition, speech synthesis, language understanding, dialog and machine translation for Siri, Apple’s personal assistant for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Carplay, Macintosh, and HomePod. Prior to joining Apple in 2013, he spent 20 years at Microsoft Research managing teams in speech, audio, multimedia, computer vision, natural language processing, machine translation, machine learning, and information retrieval. His team at Microsoft Research built Bing Translator, worked on Xbox Kinect, and pioneered the use of deep learning in large vocabulary speech recognition. From 1991-1993 he managed the speech team for Spain’s Telefonica. His first stint at Apple started in 1990.

Alex received an engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, a Masters from Rice University, and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon. He is Affiliate Faculty at the University of Washington. Alex is co-author of the textbook “Spoken Language Processing”, over 250 technical papers and 150 US patents and an h-index of 71 according to Google Scholar. Dr. Acero is a Fellow of IEEE and ISCA. He received the 2017 Norbert Wiener Society Award and the 2013 Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society.

Hossam is a project manager at Optus with 8 years of hands-on experience in delivering ICT infrastructure and security projects. He previously worked at multinational companies such as Vodafone, Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent, handling multiple vendors and third party providers. He has broad experience in project management and he is PMP®, PRINCE2®, AgilePM®, and ITIL® Certified. Hossam was the winner of IEEE MGA Leadership Award for chairing the IEEE Day Global Team.

Eddie Custovic is a qualified engineer with undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in electronics and business. He is a business owner, entrepreneur, thought leader, mentor, philanthropist and global citizen. A highly result-driven individual with standout leadership capabilities, Eddie's multicultural background, multilingualism, and "borderless" approach to work have enabled him to take a politically and culturally sensitive perspective on life, volunteer roles, and professional career.

Eddie is an academic and industry project manager in the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, La Trobe University, Australia, and the founder/director of the La Trobe Innovation & Entrepreneurship Foundry (LIEF). LIEF is an inter-disciplinary innovation think tank and R&D lab that has worked with industry, government, and local communities to provide sustainable and effective solutions. Eddie is a longtime IEEE volunteer and currently serves on numerous IEEE boards, including: Publication Services & Products, Industry Engagement, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Young Professionals. Outside of his day-to-day roles, Eddie founded the Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation that empowers youth through education and technology access as well as leadership development. He also advises numerous organizations on innovation, technology, and R&D. He is extremely passionate about STEM education and has led several federal government and NGO initiatives to help youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds overcome challenges in undertaking higher education. Eddie is a certified Level 1 Partnership Broker and has successfully developed, negotiated, and steered numerous partnerships to success.

David Durocher (SBM ’77 M ’97 SM ’99) received a BSEE at Oregon State University. He served as Global Mining, Metals, and Minerals Industry Manager during his 41-year career with Westinghouse and Eaton serving in a variety of product engineering, sales, and global marketing roles, authoring numerous technical papers that have been presented at conferences around the world and published in the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, IEEE Industry Applications Magazine, World Cement, Engineering & Mining Journal, Plant Engineering, and EC&M Magazine. He serves on IEEE Standards Working Groups IEEE1584 and IEEE1458 and is an active member of the IEEE IAS Metals Industry Committee, Cement Industry Committee, Pulp & Paper Industry Committee, and Association of Iron & Steel Technology. He served as President of IEEE IAS 2015-2016 and serves as Division II Director - IEEE Board of Directors 2019-2020.

Francisco R. Martinez is the CEO of Sistemas Azteca S.A. a company he founded in 1994 in Guadalajara, Mexico dedicated to integrating automatic data systems based on barcode and RF technology (hardware/software). He is also a system integration consultant for electronics manufacturing companies. He received the B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Guadalajara (1982) and had a Managing Diploma from ITESO University in 2008. His career includes experience as practicing engineer and designer in the electro medical industry and plant manager for the plastics industry. He has been a professor in the University of Guadalajara and ITESO University. He has been a speaker in conferences related to automatic data collection for engineers and students. In 1998 he was recognized as outstanding engineer by the governor of the State of Jalisco, Mexico.

Dr. Robert S. Fish is a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University. He is also President of the IEEE Standards Association, a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), and President of NETovations, LLC, a consulting company focused on the creation of communications and networking technology innovation. From 2007 to 2010, he was Chief Product Officer and Senior VP at Mformation, Inc. a company specializing in carrier software for mobile device management. From 1997 to 2007, Rob was Vice President and Managing Director of Panasonic US R&D laboratories. Prior to this, he was Executive Director, Multimedia Communications Research at Bellcore/Telcordia after starting his career at Bell Laboratories. Besides his many publications, Dr. Fish has been awarded 17 patents. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Dr. Fish is Steering Committee chair and Co-founder of ComSoc’s Consumer Communications and Networking Conference. He is the former chair of ComSoc’s GLOBECOM and ICC Management and Strategy Committee. Dr. Fish was the recipient of ComSoc’s MMTC Distinguished Service Award. Rob has also been Chair of IEEE SA’s Global Committee, and was a founding member of the IEEE SA Corporate Advisory Group. He co-edited a series in IEEE Communications Magazine on IEEE standards in communications and networking. Dr. Fish and his organizations have initiated and managed standards development activities in IEEE, ISO/IEC JTC1, 3GPP, OMA, IETF, ATSC, CableLabs, OSGi, etc. In 2016, Dr. Fish was awarded the Standards Medallion of the IEEE Standards Association.

Dejan is a distinguished technologist at Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA, USA [1998–]. His areas of technical expertise include operating systems, distributed systems, and systems management. He worked in the OSF Research Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA [1994–1998] and Institute “Mihajlo Pupin”, Belgrade, Serbia [1983–1991].

Dejan was a managing director of the Open Cirrus Cloud Computing testbed (2007–2011), with the academic and industrial sites in the US (6), Europe (3), and Asia (6). Dejan has published over 170 papers and two books; he has 25 granted patents and over 50 patent applications.

Dejan is an IEEE Fellow (2010), ACM Distinguished Engineer (2008), and USENIX member. He was president of the IEEE Computer Society and is currently on the IEEE Board. He has been on many conference program committees and journal editorial boards. He started two conferences (IEEE ASAP and USENIX WIESS).

He received his Ph.D. from University of Kaiserslautern, Germany (1993) and M.Sc./B.Sc. from Belgrade University, Serbia (1983/86).

Ed Palacio is President and a founding partner of P&L Technical Management Solutions (PLTMS). Previously, Ed was Vice President of Program Management and Business Operations for ITT Exelis Electronic Systems, a US$1.5-billion Strategic Business Unit and a leading supplier of Electronic Warfare, Communications, Radar, and Electronic Support Measure Systems. In this position, he was responsible for Program Management excellence throughout all of Electronic Systems’ multiple locations. Before joining ITT as part of its acquisition of EDO, Ed was Sector Vice President for EDO Corporation’s Electronic Warfare Sector. This sector consisted of three business entities with annual sales of more than US$350 million.

Ed has more than 37 years of experience in directing the development and production of complex electronic systems with a history of successful performance. He has proven expertise in corporate strategy formulation, organizational construct, international teaming, and major program pursuit and capture. He has held profit and loss responsibility at the Business Unit and Sector levels, as well as functional lead positions in Program Management, Engineering, and Operations.

Ed holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union School of Engineering and Science. He also holds two master's degrees, in Electrical Engineering and Technology Management, from Polytechnic Institute of New York, USA. He is a Program Management Institute certified Project Management Professional (PMP) as well as a Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt. Ed also teaches graduate-level Product Development, Project Management, and Global Operations Management courses at the State University of New York, Stony Brook campus, USA.

Nita Patel, P.E., is the Senior Director, Engineering at L3Harris Integrated Land Systems. Nita was named the 2014 L3 Engineer of the Year and the 2011 New Hampshire Engineer of the Year award for her technical contributions to the engineering profession. Nita has been an active IEEE volunteer serving in many roles for over 20 years. She is the founder of the IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE ILC) and, in the past, served as Women in Engineering International Chair, 1st VP of Computer Society Board of Governors, Eta Kappa Nu Board of Governors member and 2010-12 IEEE-USA VP of Communications & Public Awareness. Outside of IEEE, she is an active volunteer with Toastmasters International and a senior director with the United States Chess Federation. Nita received her MS in Computer Engineering (1998), BS in Electrical Engineering (1995) and BS in Mathematics (1995) from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Sohaib Sheikh is a London-based Digital Consultant with multidisciplinary, cross-sector, global consultancy experience. He has expertise in strategy, design, implementation, and commissioning of large-scale complex information and communications systems on high-profile, major international capital investment programs, particularly in the commercial property and sport sectors across the United Kingdom, Middle East, and Russia.

Sohaib is passionate about STEM education and technology management and has volunteered for international organizations such as IEEE, Engineers Without Borders, and Rotary International to promote both causes. Currently, he is a member of the IEEE Education Activities Board. He is also the Chair of the IEEE EMEA Education Activities Sub-Committee and was a member of the Board of Directors’ appointed 2017 IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee. He has given plenary talks and delivered workshops at 40+ international events including the UNESCO World Science Forum, IEEE Sections Congress, and the World Engineering Education Forum.

Upon completion of his studies, Costas worked for a year at the Agence France-Presse (AFP), an international news agency as an Electrical Engineer and then for three years at the Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques (SITA), the world's leading service provider of integrated IT business solutions and communication services of the air transport industry. Then in 1991, Costas moved on to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), the major electricity provider of Cyprus, responsible for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Cyprus. There he held various Engineering Specialist and Management positions in various departments acquiring experience and knowledge from different areas and disciplines. Costas currently holds the position of Acting Area Manager having under management more than 430 employees. In the recent years, he was the Manager for the Forward Planning, issuing of Terms for Electricity Supply and for the Methods and Programming Departments. Costas has successfully managed several projects including GIS and large Photovoltaic and Wind Farm plants. He has formed policy regarding renewable energy, grid connections and took part in many working groups and committees. Costas’ main interests include Renewable Energy, Smart Grids, Innovations and Start-ups.