Judges & Mentors

2015 Judges and Mentors

(click on photo for bio)

 

Nicholas Ashworth, Eaton

IPSO CHALLENGE Co-Chairman 2015, Mentor – Smart Display

As Engineering & Technology Director at Eaton Corporation, Mr. Ashworth brings to the Alliance a wealth of engineering leadership experience ranging from NASA to Cyberexe, Invensys, Nivis, and now Eaton. Mr. Ashworth has a distinguished track record of over 20 years in product development and leadership in industries including HVAC, appliances, commercial lighting, and smart grid. He holds 15 patents for inventions involving the application of smart technologies for HVAC systems. Nick Ashworth has served as Chairman of the IPSO CHALLENGE since its launch in 2013 and has served both as judge and mentor to the teams.

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Nicholas Ashworth, Eaton

Nicholas Ashworth, Eaton

IPSO CHALLENGE Co-Chairman 2015, Mentor – Smart Display

Christian Légaré, Micrium

IPSO CHALLENGE Co-Chairman 2015, Mentor – Smart Inventory System
christian.legare@micrium.com

Christian Légaré is Executive Vice President and CTO of Micrium, a pioneer in the development and sales of embedded software for the Internet of Things. Before joining Micrium in 2003, Mr. Légaré spent 22 years in the telecom industry as an executive in such large-scale organizations as Teleglobe Canada and in engineering and R&D startups. He was in charge of an IP (Internet Protocol) certification program at the International Institute of Telecom (IIT) in Montreal, Canada. He is a regular speaker at Embedded Systems Conferences across the U.S. and has published several articles on embedded systems. Mr. Légaré holds an BSEE and MSEE from the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

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Christian Légaré, Micrium

Christian Légaré, Micrium

IPSO CHALLENGE Co-Chairman 2015, Mentor – Smart Inventory System

Geoff Mulligan, Proto6

Mentor – Smart Grow 1.0

Geoff Mulligan is a consultant, developer and lecturer on Privacy, Security and the IoT, and is the US representative to the ISO Smart and Sustainable Cities project. In 2013 and 2014, while serving as a Presidential Innovation Fellow working on the Cyber-Physical Systems project for the White House with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), he co-created the SmartAmerica Challenge. Mr. Mulligan is the Founder and President of Proto6, a technology consulting company focused on the Internet of Things, RF Sensors, IPv6, IP networks and open systems. He is notable for developing the Embedded Internet and creating the 6LoWPAN protocol and was a founder of the Zigbee Alliance.  He helped build the first commercial firewall product and was instrumental in the design of the IPv6 protocol. Mr. Mulligan holds over 15 patents in network security and electronic mail.

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Geoff Mulligan, Proto6

Geoff Mulligan, Proto6

Mentor – Smart Grow 1.0

Robert Assimiti, Centero

Mentor – HeadsUp!

Robert Assimiti is CTO and Director of Technology at Centero, Grand Prize Winners of IPSO CHALLENGE 2014. He has over 11 years of technical leadership in the wireless arena and has designed and developed several highly-scalable, mesh based wireless product lines for both commercial and industrial wireless markets. At Centero, he manages a team of technologists focused on the creation of new technologies, standardization and generation of novel intellectual property. Mr. Assimiti defines Centero’s current and future technical strategic market position, while expanding its technological offerings as well as enriching and maintaining Centero’s patent portfolio. He oversees strategic partnerships, the integration of new business models, the incubation of new technologies and the cultivation of world-class talent. Mr. Assimiti is also actively involved in shaping, drafting and editing various standards, including the now finalized ISA100.11a standardization effort. He has also served as the chair of the IPSO Interoperability workgroup and has published numerous white papers and articles as well as hosted insightful webinars.

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Robert Assimiti, Centero

Robert Assimiti, Centero

Mentor – HeadsUp!

Björn Ekelund, Ericsson

Mentor – The Smart Rock Bolt

Björn Ekelund is Head of Device Technology and Ecosystem at Ericsson Research.  Mr. Ekelund has close to 30 years of telecom experience ranging from basic research and product development to marketing.  He has participated in the development and market introduction of all cellular radio technologies from GSM and onwards.  In addition to his work at Ericsson, he serves on a number of company boards, is vice chairman of an innovation cluster organization and works as an advisor for public bodies, such as the Swedish Government and the European Commission.  Mr. Ekelund is passionate about innovation and holds a number of patents.

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Björn Ekelund, Ericsson

Björn Ekelund, Ericsson

Mentor – The Smart Rock Bolt

Jaime Jiménez, Ericsson

Mentor – MicroPnP

Jaime Jiménez is a Senior Researcher at Ericsson Research with several years of experience on research and innovation. Jaime is currently co-chairing the IPSO Smart Object committee, helping drive to completion and publication the Smart Objects technical guidelines and Smart Objects data models. He has a wide understanding of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and is passionate about technology, inventing and prototyping.

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Jaime Jiménez, Ericsson

Jaime Jiménez, Ericsson

Mentor – MicroPnP

Anil Keshavamurthy, Intel

Mentor – Intelligent Hospital Food Tray

Anil Keshavamurthy is a Software Architect at Intel Corporation with over 19 years of industry experience in software development, research and innovation of which he has spent the last 15 years with Intel. Anil has worked in various groups within Intel and now reports to the Strategy and Technology Office within Intel Internet of Things Group (IOTG). Anil has strong expertise in core Linux Kernel and Virtualization layer and has contributed heavily to Linux Kennel in the past. He is currently focusing on MCU’s and RTOS within IOTG. He is also contributing to Testbeds and standards with IIC Consortium

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Anil Keshavamurthy, Intel

Anil Keshavamurthy, Intel

Mentor – Intelligent Hospital Food Tray

Rares Ivan, Centero

Mentor – Alpine Race Training
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Rares Ivan, Centero

Rares Ivan, Centero

Mentor – Alpine Race Training

Michael Koster, ARM

Mentor – Intelligent Thermostatic Radiator Valve

Michael Koster works on Internet of Things architecture, application level interoperability, and internet standards ARM. He is co-chair of the IPSO Smart Objects working group and working on IETF draft standards for IoT. He has been investigating architecture and design patterns for the Internet of Things and is building IoT Toolkit, an open source API and platform focused on high level semantic interoperability between IoT devices, data sources, and applications.

Michael has been building infrastructure for ubiquitous computing and putting things on the Internet for 15 years. He has worked with large networked process control and M2M communication systems since the early 1980s, and has designed architectures for scalable and fault-tolerant computer systems, both for large computer companies like Unisys and Sun Microsystems, and for various Silicon Valley startups. He holds over a dozen patents in shared-memory multiprocessor cache protocols and web scale data consistency mechanisms

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Michael Koster, ARM

Michael Koster, ARM

Mentor – Intelligent Thermostatic Radiator Valve

Pierre Roux, Atmel

Mentor – A Better Mousetrap

Pierre is the Head of Marketing for the Wireless MCU Solutions Group at Atmel and brings over 15 years of experience in embedded systems. In his current role, he is responsible for product management and the marketing organization developing low power wireless transceivers and SoCs that are leveraged to create MCU-based solutions for IoT edge nodes. Prior to this role, Pierre has held several positions in the MCU business unit including a 7-year overseas assignment in Asia Pacific, during which he established the company’s ARM-based MCU business.

Prior to joining Atmel in 2004, he held various positions in IC Design, and System & Application Engineering at Scaleo Chip, a fables semiconductor company specialized in low power ARM-based ASICs. He holds a Master of Science in Technologies for broadband communications from the University College London and is a graduate from CPE Lyon Institute of Technology, France, with a Masters Degree in Microelectronics

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Pierre Roux, Atmel

Pierre Roux, Atmel

Mentor – A Better Mousetrap

Fabien Castanier, ST

Judge 2014-15

Fabien Castanier is R&D Manager at STMicroelectronics, specializing in technologies for Smart Object communications and M2M applications. He has been working in the semiconductor industry in both Europe and the US for nearly 20 years. His focus has mostly been in the areas of networking protocols and applications for embedded systems. Mr. Castanier also contributes to European IoT research projects, such as FP7 BUTLER and CLOUT. Mr. Castanier represents STMicroelectronics as a key member of the IPSO Alliance, serving on the Alliance’s technical committees, advising on the Marketing Council and speaking regularly on behalf of the IPSO Alliance at M2M/IoT industry events.

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Fabien Castanier, ST

Fabien Castanier, ST

Judge 2014-15

Matt Gillmore, Itron

Judge/Mentor 2013-15

Matt Gillmore is a Strategic Industry Standards Architect in Itron, Inc.’s Office of the CTO. He has been a key member of the IPSO Alliance, having served as Chair of the Technical Advisory Board (TAB),  guiding the  production of technical documents of relevance to the IPSO community.  Mr. Gillmore is an active participant in various standards groups including IEEE 802, IETF and Zigbee Alliance, and has been an advocate for open standards in the Smart Grid industry since its inception.

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Matt Gillmore, Itron

Matt Gillmore, Itron

Judge/Mentor 2013-15

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Past Judges and Mentors

 

Ralph Droms, Cisco

Judge/Mentor 2013-14

Ralph Droms is a Cisco Distinguished Engineer in Cisco’s Enterprise Networking CTO office, where he contributes to the design and development of IPv6-based IoT protocols stacks, SDN and enterprise-scale DNS-SD. Dr. Droms has served on the Technical Advisory Board of the IPSO Alliance and is also active in the IETF and ZigBee Alliance. Prior to joining Cisco, Dr. Droms was on the faculty at Bucknell and Penn State and co-director of the Computer Center at Bucknell. He has also been on the research staff at both IBM and Burroughs (Unisys). Dr. Droms is a co-author of “The DHCP Handbook” and holds a PhD in computer science from Purdue University.

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Ralph Droms, Cisco

Ralph Droms, Cisco

Judge/Mentor 2013-14

Jefferson Owen, ST

Judge/Mentor 2014

Jefferson Owen is currently the Chief Architect for Network Security and Content Protection for STMicroelectronics NV in their Advanced System Technology group, where he has worked for the last 15 years, 3 of which were in Switzerland. Mr. Owen has over 30 years in electronics design, applications and architecture. His early work involved nuclear power plant security system design at Duke Energy followed by office equipment design at Xerox in Dallas, Texas. He moved to the San Jose area in 1986 to pursue semiconductor applications and system design at several start-ups. Mr. Owen represents STMicroelectronics at the IPSO Alliance and served as mentor to the team from Vienna University of Technology.

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Jefferson Owen, ST

Jefferson Owen, ST

Judge/Mentor 2014

Magnus Pedersen, Atmel

Judge/Mentor 2013-14

Magnus Pedersen is currently a Director at Atmel Corporation, a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers.  Mr. Pedersen has over 15 years experience in embedded systems and gives frequent presentations as a subject matter expert at technical conferences around the globe. Mr. Pedersen represents Atmel as a member of the IPSO Alliance where he has served on the Board of Directors and advises on technical and marketing issues. He holds a bachelor degree in Tele-/Radio communication from Trondheim College of Engineering and has held positions as Technical Officer in the Royal Norwegian Air Force, Product Manager, Sales and Marketing manager, R&D Manager and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in Q-Free ASA.

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Magnus Pedersen, Atmel

Magnus Pedersen, Atmel

Judge/Mentor 2013-14

Pete St. Pierre, Oracle

Judge/Mentor, 2013-15

Pete St. Pierre is a member of Oracle’s Product Management team responsible for the Internet of Things. He joined Oracle as part of the Sun Microsystems acquisition in 2010, where he spent 15 years working on networking technologies and system architectures. Mr. St. Pierre has been an active participant in various IETF working groups, is a named inventor on 17 networking patents and is a co-author of “SLP: Service Location Protocol for Enterprise Networks”. He possesses a deep understanding of the technologies associated with the Internet of Things and an appreciation for the business challenges of deploying real-world interoperable solutions. Throughout his professional career he has been involved in technology development, working with standards setting organizations along the way.

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Pete St. Pierre, Oracle

Pete St. Pierre, Oracle

Judge/Mentor, 2013-15

Niclas Krantz, Ericsson

Judge, 2013-2014

Niclas Krantz is an Engagement Manager at Ericsson where he has been driving Ericsson’s global Machine-to-Machine Strategic Engagement Topic during the last two years, engaging in Market Research, Go-to-Market Strategies, and Sales Engagements for mobile operators globally. Mr. Krantz has been serving the Marketing Advisory Council for IPSO the last two years. He has a professional background in management consulting where he focused on IT Strategy and Supply Chain solutions.

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Niclas Krantz, Ericsson

Niclas Krantz, Ericsson

Judge, 2013-2014

Adam Justice, Grid Connect

Judge/Mentor 2014

Adam Justice is Vice President and General Manager of Grid Connect Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of networking products and wireless sensors. He is responsible for developing the vision for the Connectsense product line, a family of wireless sensors that monitor the things you care about and notify you when something goes awry. Adam is an expert on the Internet of Things and has spoken on the topic at numerous conferences, including Dreamforce. Adam started his career at Accenture where he was a consultant working on systems and IT projects for a number of Fortune 500 companies throughout the country.

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Adam Justice, Grid Connect

Adam Justice, Grid Connect

Judge/Mentor 2014

Mike Justice, Grid Connect

Judge/Mentor 2014

Mike Justice is a former BOD member and current member of ODVA (odva.org), an international standards organization started by Rockwell that promotes the DeviceNet & Ethernet/IP standards for the industrial marketplace. Mr. Justice is also a current member of Profibus International (profibus.com), a standards organization started by Siemens to promote the Profibus and ProfiNet standards for the industrial marketplace. Throughout his 35 years of industry experience, he has developed an excellent understanding of networking technologies, including Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, serial (RS232/422/485), 900MHz, and others. He holds a B.S in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois.

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Mike Justice, Grid Connect

Mike Justice, Grid Connect

Judge/Mentor 2014

Zach Shelby, ARM

Judge, 2013-2014

Zach Shelby is Vice President of Marketing for the Internet of Things at ARM and a main contributor to the standardization of key technologies behind the Internet of Things. Mr. Shelby has served for a number of years on the IPSO Alliance Board of Directors and founded the Smart Object Committee, where he continues to drive IPSO’s vision of a connected future. Mr. Shelby was co-founder of Sensinode where he has acted as CEO and CTO for the ground-breaking company before its acquisition by ARM. Before starting Sensinode, he led wireless networking research at the Centre for Wireless Communications and at the Technical Research Center of Finland.  Mr. Shelby is a key contributor at the IETF for IoT standards with contributions in 6LoWPAN, routing, web services and security related standards, ETSI and OMA standardisation on M2M, and in several top international research programs.

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Zach Shelby, ARM

Zach Shelby, ARM

Judge, 2013-2014

Patrick Wetterwald, Cisco

Judge, 2013-14

Patrick Wetterwald has extensive experience in the IoT area as the Smart Grid and IoT Product Manager at Cisco Systems. He has been advocating IP connectivity for Smart Objects for many years. He is very involved in the European Smart Objects market and is the chair of the Communication Reference Architecture Group of the European mandate M490 (Smart Grid). Mr. Wetterwald was an initial founder of the IPSO Alliance, where he has served for four years as the President of the Board of Directors, driving new ideas within the Alliance in key areas such as smart grids, smart cities, industrial automation, smart homes and buildings, and healthcare. He currently serves as the liaison with the European Commission Internet of Things (IoT) expert group. He has written several articles on behalf of the IPSO Alliance and delivered many keynote presentations at international events.

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Patrick Wetterwald, Cisco

Patrick Wetterwald, Cisco

Judge, 2013-14

Joy Weiss, Dust Networks/Linear

Judge, 2014

Joy Weiss has held executive leadership positions over the past 30 years at a variety of private and public technology companies. Weiss was CEO of Dust Networks when it was acquired by Linear Technology in 2011. Prior to Dust Networks, Weiss was President and CEO of Inviso, an award winning private microdisplay company, and she began her career at Nortel Networks where she rose to the position of President and GM of the Network Management division. Weiss has served on the boards of several private companies in Silicon Valley, and is currently on the boards of Vigilent, the leading provider of dynamic data center cooling management systems, and Playworks, a national non-profit organization. Weiss holds a BSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was tapped as one of the “2013 Women of M2M” in Connected World magazine and as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer in 2007.

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Joy Weiss, Dust Networks/Linear

Joy Weiss, Dust Networks/Linear

Judge, 2014

Jari Aarko, Ericsson

Judge, 2013

Jari Aarko is an Expert for Ericsson Research, while currently serving as Chairman of the IETF, having previously been part of the steering group and architecture boards.  He has also co-chaired the EAP, EMU, and MOBIKE WGs, and co-authored protocol specifications for Mobile IPv6, Diameter, and SEND, as well as some smaller protocol updates such as Network Access. He is known for his work in Internet, security, and wireless technology and served as Chairman of the IPSO Technical Advisory Board. As a judge for IPSO CHALLENGE 2013, Jari was responsible for rescuing two of the prototypes which were being held in customs; one of which ultimately won the Grand Prize!

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Jari Aarko, Ericsson

Jari Aarko, Ericsson

Judge, 2013

Jonathan Adams, Sigma Designs

Judge, 2014

Jonathan Adams is Senior Field Applications Engineer at Sigma Designs. He has spent over 15 years developing embedded low-power, high performance, RF consumer electronics and military systems. Before joining Sigma, Mr. Adams established and managed the first US test house for Z-Wave certification. In his role at Sigma he has advanced the adoption of Z-Wave as the leading technology for Smart Home IoT by leading the embedded hardware systems designs of commercial devices from conception to high volume production. He is active in the Silicon Valley IoT community and has authored numerous white papers on embedded design and functionality. Mr. Adams holds an BSEE and MS Computer Engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia.

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Jonathan Adams, Sigma Designs

Jonathan Adams, Sigma Designs

Judge, 2014

Tom Herbst, Silver Spring Networks

Judge, 2013

Tom Herbst has been building large IP networks for over 25 years, but his focus has shifted more to the smallest components of the IoT. Mr. Herbst is currently responsible for Silver Spring Networks' Smart Grid and Internet of Things standards engagements. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP), is an elected member of the Open Smart Grid (OpenSG) Technical Committee and of NIST’s Smart Grid Interoperability Panel’s Smart Grid Architecture Committee (SGAC). He was technical editor for ZigBee’s Smart Energy Profile 2 (SEP 2.0). Mr. Herbst’s prior experience ranges from network engineering at Xerox to a nearly 20 year career at Cisco where he pioneered the Smart Grid business unit.

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Tom Herbst, Silver Spring Networks

Tom Herbst, Silver Spring Networks

Judge, 2013

Jan Höller, Ericsson

Judge, 2013

Mr. Höller is a Principal Researcher at Ericsson Research where he has the responsibility to define and drive technology strategies and to contribute to the company strategies in the area of M2M and Internet of Things, and where he is a strong advocate for Ericsson’s vision of “50 Billion connected Devices”. He was an early promoter of Internet of Things and M2M at Ericsson and significantly contributed to Ericsson’s portfolio and standardization strategies. Jan has also served as a Board Member of WISENET, Vinnova Centre of Excellence for Wireless Sensor Networks at Uppsala University in Sweden. Mr. Höller’s expertise spans IoT, M2M, context-aware services, ubiquitous computing and mobile and pervasive networking, as well as standardization, business innovation, partnering and ecosystem creation and is matched by his belief in the use of IP and the Web in all connected devices. He was recently featured in a Wired Magazine article titled When the World becomes the Web and is a co-author of the new book, From Machine-to-Machine to the Internet of Things – Introduction to a New Age of Intelligence. Mr. Höller currently serves as Secretary of the IPSO Alliance Board of Directors, where he provides guidance on the telecommunications industry and its partnership with the IPSO Alliance to advance mutual goals.

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Jan Höller, Ericsson

Jan Höller, Ericsson

Judge, 2013

Yoshihiro Ohba, Toshiba

Judge, 2013

<p>Dr. Yoshihiro Ohba is a Chief Research Scientist in Toshiba Corporate R&amp;D Center, Japan. He served as Chair of IEEE 802.21a Task Group, and has been serving as Chair of IEEE 802.21d Task Group since 2012. He is also Vice Chair and Secretary of ZigBee Alliance Neighborhood Area Network (NAN) WG. He is a main contributor to RFC5191 (PANA – Protocol for carrying Authentication for Network Access), which is used as the standard network access authentication protocol for B-Route and Home Area Network profiles of Wi-SUN Alliance and ZigBee IP profile of ZigBee Alliance. He received IEEE Region 1Technology Innovation Award 2008 for Innovative and Exemplary Contributions to the Field of Internet Mobility and Security related Research and Standards.</p>

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Yoshihiro Ohba, Toshiba

Yoshihiro Ohba, Toshiba

Judge, 2013

Anton Pfefferseder, Bosch

Judge, 2013-2014

Dr. Pfefferseder has been with Bosch Global for over 15 years, where he is currently responsible for fieldbus and sensor communication topics within Bosch’s energy and building technology business sector. A prolific inventor, Dr. Pfefferseder is co-author of two dozen patents and is a leader in the application of network connectivity to life saving field detection devices, sensors and control systems. Dr. Pfefferseder has been a Distinguished Member of the IPSO Alliance Board of Directors for 4 years.

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Anton Pfefferseder, Bosch

Anton Pfefferseder, Bosch

Judge, 2013-2014

Mike Coop, Greenwave Reality

Judge, 2013

<p>Mike Coop is a 25-year high-tech veteran who has held leadership positions in the industry’s most progressive startup and public companies, including Microsoft Corporation and Cisco Systems. In 2007 he founded a consultancy which is now focused primarily on residential and vehicular Smart Grid standards and policy issues, particularly relating to cybersecurity. Coop is an active participant in numerous standards and policy efforts, including serving as a Governing Board member for NIST’s Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. He frequently speaks at sector-specific events, and is also a member of the FBI’s InfraGard, IEEE, AFCEA, and SABR.</p>

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Mike Coop, Greenwave Reality

Mike Coop, Greenwave Reality

Judge, 2013

Sokwoo Rhee, Millennial Net

Judge, 2013

Dr. Sokwoo Rhee is Associate Director of Cyber-Physical Systems at National Institute of Standards and Technology, covering Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities strategy and standard/technology development. He is leading Global City Teams Challenge that aims to create a replicable and scalable model for collaborative incubation and deployments of Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) solutions to improve the quality of life in Smart Cities around the world. He previously served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow on CPS, a program by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House. During his fellowship, he co-led the SmartAmerica Challenge, which brought together IoT technologies and CPS across the nation to demonstrate how they can provide concrete examples of the socio-economic benefits. Prior to joining US government, he was Co-founder and CTO of Millennial Net, Inc., which was one of the first to successfully commercialize low-power wireless mesh/sensor network and Internet of Things technology from academia. Prior to the founding of Millennial Net, he worked on wireless medical sensors as a research associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work and achievements have been recognized through awards including MIT Technology Review’s Top Innovators under 35. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Sokwoo Rhee, Millennial Net

Sokwoo Rhee, Millennial Net

Judge, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you to the many Industry Experts who have donated their time and talents to selecting our Prize Winning Entries!