Linda Chandler is the APAC Smart Cities Lead for Microsoft Services. She is currently focused on a portfolio of innovation, incubation and scale smart city activities across Singapore, Australia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Linda’s passion for cities has been threaded through her 20+ year career. Prior to relocating to Singapore with her family 12 months ago, she was instrumental in influencing the global Microsoft CityNext strategy and landing this for Services in the UK, leading a team of strategic consultants and co-authoring city whitepapers. She grew a team in the UK which included subject matter experts in digital health, education and transportation.

In addition, she was also a Trustee of the London Transport Museum with a special focus on Future Cities and represented Microsoft on the board of the UK National Equality Standard incubated by Ernst & Young. Linda remains a strong supporter of the Women in Technology agenda.

Before joining Microsoft 9 years ago, Linda was CIO for the economic development body of the Mayor of London. Linda holds a First Class Honours Degree and Masters in Computing from LSE and also an MBA from the Open University.

Tad Deriso is the President & CEO of the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corporation (MBC).

In 2003, Tad helped form MBC, a non-profit organization that has built an advanced open-access fiber optic backbone network in Southern Virginia. The network, which is now in its 12th full year of operations, is helping to generate new jobs and investments in the region, and is a successful model of how public/private partnerships can work to extend advanced fiber optic middle-mile networks to underserved communities. Tad is leading an innovative project to establish one of the largest TV White Space pilot projects in the world that will provide no-cost broadband access to on-line educational content for over 2,500 students in rural Virginia.

Tad has spoken at many State, National and International conferences on the importance of open-access fiber networks, the role those networks play in economic development and addressing the broadband digital inclusion problem, and how national and regional governing bodies can implement similar models to boost broadband access and enhance economic dividends for rural communities.

Kenrick is currently Expert in Residence for Growth at Golden Gate Ventures where he assists portfolio companies with all things digital marketing. Previously he held various growth positions in Singapore with Rocket Internet, Nonstop Games (acquired by King Digital) and HomeAway Asia. In addition he has built multiple online ventures through SEM arbitrage and affiliate solutions. Kenrick is an active angel investor in the mobile gaming space and holds an MBA from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Dr. El-Moghazi is the spectrum management research and studies director at the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) of Egypt. At present, he is responsible for spectrum planning and pricing for new wireless services.

Dr. El-Moghazi was awarded the British Chevening Scholarship to join the Master of Communications Management (MCM) program at the University of Strathclyde. He has also obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Strathclyde on the interaction between international spectrum regime and national spectrum management policies.

Throughout his career at NTRA, Dr. El-Moghazi has been involved in many activities in NTRA including national broadband plan, digital switchover, and 3G licensing. He was the Chairman of Working Group 4B in WRC-15, and was also Egypt’s coordinator for WRC-15 A.I. 1.1 (additional spectrum allocations to the mobile service) and A.I. 1.2 (the use of the frequency band 694-790 MHz by the mobile service).

Gordon is Director of Smart Cities for Schneider-Electric. He was a former Director of Cisco, Urban Innovation and former Strategy Head of Masdar City. He is a smart city expert, city consultant, global thought leader in cities, technology clusters, property & infrastructure developer, city developer, and chartered surveyor. He has an extensive global network within the infrastructure and urban development area including NGO’s, consultants and many more.

Gordon has engaged with cities and city infrastructure projects globally as a trusted adviser to the public and private sectors, NGO’s, government leaders including the World Bank and the EU. In Singapore, he has advised Government agencies & R&D panels such as HDB, IDA, and NUS. He is an advisory board member of University College London’s City Leaders programme and was an adviser to City of Barcelona.

Gordon brings a business understanding and economic strategic perspective to smart cities and infrastructure development given his background in property development and city development and involvement with ICT; bridging the gap between “vision” and the “reality” of smart cities / real estate and allowing an understanding of stakeholder and business models. He has engaged heavily with urban partnership development and urban eco-system creation with an emphasis on partnership creation.

In 2012, he helped jointly create the City Protocol Society in Barcelona and was an adviser to the EU Smart Cities Stakeholder Platform. In 2013 he was ranked No.47 by UBM Future Cities Top 100 City Innovators index.

Gordon’s city experience has been influenced by his time with Masdar City in Abu Dhabi (UAE), a zero carbon sustainable city project, where he headed the strategy for the $20 Billion USD project.

Laina Raveendran Greene, was former Executive Director and Chief Strategy and Investment Officer at IBS Tower, and is currently Founder of G-ET-IT, Inc, co-founder of Angels of Impact and also International Steering Committee Member at GTWN (Global Telecommunication Women Network).

G-ET-IT is an organization that focuses on capitalizing on communication technology as a tool of empowerment. They provide consulting services and training on strategic planning, product management, and business development.

Laina has also held positions as Member of Board of Directors at Emota.net; Member of the ITU Telecom Forum Advisory Committee; Guest lecturer, Global Entrepreneurial Marketing at Stanford University; Senior Strategic Marketing Consultant at Internet Systems Consortium; Executive Communications Consultant at Juniper Networks; External Consultant at Cisco; Director and Audit Committee member, Board of Directors at Globetel Communications; Policy Advisor at APNIC; Secretary General at APIA; Business Manager at SingTel; Strategic Planning Advisor at Intelsat; Expert at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); and Consultant to the Chief of the Telecommunication Regulations and Member Relations at the International Telecommunication Union.

Laina earned her Bachelor of Law from the National University of Singapore in 1986 and LL.M. in Telecom, Negotiations Workshop, and Company Law from Harvard Law School in 1992. She graduated from executive programs at Stanford University and Singularity University in 2007 and 2011 respectively. She has lived and travelled to 47 countries over the span of her 25 years in the industry.

Robert (Bob) Horton is an engineer who has spent 25 years working for and assisting telecommunications regulators with matters including institutional planning and organization, internal guidelines, staff development, development of regulations and implementation of relevant laws.

He spent six years as Deputy Chairman and two years as Chairman of the Australian Communications Authority, and was responsible for a number of services and initiatives, including numbering and number portability, international mobile roaming, spectrum planning and spectrum auctions.

More recently, he has advised regulators in countries including Bhutan, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam on implementation of legal instruments, internal processes and guidelines, and the structure of the regulatory agency. Dr. Horton has also led standards and radiocommunications-related Australian delegations at the ITU and the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity.

He was Chairman of ASTAP (standards studies) in the APT for 10 years, and initial Chairman of the Telecommunications Standards Advisory Group (TSAG) in the ITU for 4 years. Since 2008, he has also been a key consultant to Intelsat and Inmarsat in Australia for licensing and regulatory matters, both domestically and for ITU- and APT WRC developments. He is also a founding Board Member of the regulatory body NICTA in PNG and has an abiding interest in Pacific development.

Junxian is the co-founder of private investment platform, Fundnel.com, a regional fintech company which he founded with a number of fellow finance professionals from the top investment banks and private equity funds. He is concurrently the Chief Financial Officer to CashShield, a global payments and security firm operating into Europe, America and Asia. In his previous stint in a leading regional internet company, he was responsible for its corporate venture investments and also launched an e-commerce product across 7 countries in Southeast Asia, architecting both the payments and logistical strategies across each unique geography. Junxian also co-owns Reedz Group, a chain of cafes serving the tertiary education and business park communities which he has successfully run and grown for the past 8 years. Junxian has alma maters from the NUS in Singapore, Fudan University, Shanghai, China and Harvard University, Boston, USA.

Amjad Mustafa Malik has been linked to telecommunication since 1996 in the government sector. Prior to joining as sector regulator, he worked with defense communications and also operators who were looking after integrated services of fixed and mobile.

Malik has hands on experience with installing GSM, CDMA, OFC, SDH systems International Gateway and Microwave Connectivity especially in hilly terrains, etc. His primary focus was to provide state of the art services to end users with the latest equipment in place. Malik has also carried out in-depth analysis of each system being deployed.

Malik has developed expertise and experience spanning 2G, 3G, 4G, and fixed technologies. With an extensive background in technology implementation based on government policies, Malik is serving as the Director in Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and has assisted some of the most important tasks in Pakistan’s telecommunications industry, including spectrum auctions, bringing it at par with the rest of the world markets.

Malik attended foreign trainings and seminars, etc., in Australia, USA, China, Bhutan, and India with regards to spectrum and factory testing.

Prior to joining COAI as DG in April 2010, Rajan served in many senior executive positions such as CEO, COO and CFO of such major companies as Telargo (a JV of NTT DoCoMo), Afghan Wireless, Call Sciences, AT&T Wireless, Birla-AT&T (now IDEA), and as a senior financial executive at Beatrice International, Columbia-Tri Star Pictures, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Rajan specializes in international operations and start-up ventures, turn-arounds, mergers & acquisitions and venture financing. He assisted in raising over $1.5 billion of financing for companies through public and private offerings of equity, debt and private placements. He has managed companies in such diverse places such as the USA, Afghanistan, India, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Rajan has served and continues to serve on the boards of several for-profit and non-profit organizations. He earned both his Master of Business Administration (Finance & Accounting) and Master of Arts (Economics) degrees from Rutgers University (USA) and he is a CPA from the State of New Jersey, USA.

Colin is a mobile media entrepreneur and presently leads the APAC regional App-related business unit for Minimob, a mobile advertising and performance-marketing outfit that has offices across 24 cities.

With a 15-year career spanning all things Mobile, he has presented at many International conferences; including the Mobile World Congress (Barcelona), RBC Capital Markets Technology, Internet, Media and Telecommunications (New York); the Social Media World Forum (SMWF) Singapore, the MEF Global Forum (San Francisco) – and also at GMIC (Beijing).

From 2011-2015, he was Chair of MEF Asia (the Mobile Ecosystem Forum) serving four consecutive terms of office. For his services, he was granted the honorary title ‘MEF Asia Chair Emeritus’ by the Association. He was also recently voted-in as President of the Mobile Alliance, Singapore. Colin has been a regular member on the Judging panel for various elite annual Mobile industry awards.

Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan has been joining Authority of Radio Frequency Management-Ministry of Information and Communication since 2002, majored in radio frequency monitoring, frequency licensing and assignment, spectrum plan. Currently, his position is deputy director of spectrum policy and planning division in Authority of Radio Frequency Management, responsible for National frequency table, broadcasting service and International Mobile Telecommunication.

Mr. Tuan is also active in activities of regional and international forum on radio communication such as ASEAN TELMIN, ITU-R WP5D, APG, and WRC-2016. He has highly contributed to the promotion of spectrum harmonization in ASEAN region through his proposal on ASEAN cooperation projects, especially the proposal on establishment of working group on spectrum management in ASEAN, in which Mr. Tuan has been taking the role of chairman.

Mr. Rashid Shafi has over 30 years of telecom and manufacturing industry experience highlighted by a track record of transforming business operations for sustained profitability and continuous growth. His visionary leadership and forward thinking at senior management roles have enabled organizations to develop flagship products, create entrenchment strategies for existing services and penetrative plans to capitalize on new market opportunities. Mr. Shafi holds Bachelors & Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and is a qualified Advance Business Management professional.

Mr. Rashid Shafi holds the positions of Chief Executive Officer Global Business and Chief Strategy Officer at Multinet Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd since 2005. His portfolio includes Multinet’s Strategy Development, International Carrier Business and Regulatory Affairs. Through his tenure at Multinet Pakistan, he is widely acknowledged for his advocacy to promote a subtle and open regulatory framework that has created an environment conducive for both investors and the users.

Krupal Raval is the Chief Financial Officer, Asia Pacific for Digital Realty. In this role, he oversees the range of financial functions in Asia Pacific region, including new potential joint venture partnerships and other de novo capital transactions. He also serves as the regional Portfolio Manager, overseeing a portfolio of over 1.1 million square feet, which has grown over 30% during Mr. Raval’s tenure in APAC. Mr. Raval joined Digital Realty in early 2014.

Previously, Mr. Raval served as the Vice President, Capital Markets at Alexandria Real Estate Equities. Here, he was responsible for designing and executing financial strategy, balance sheet management and corporate functions, including financial reporting, corporate finance, and investor relations and marketing. During his tenure at Alexandria, the firm raised $2.1 billion of equity and debt capital. Prior to this, Mr. Raval served as a Research Analyst for Fidelity Management and Research, where he coordinated asset allocation with the firm’s portfolio managers, resulting in over $4 billion new capital invested in publicly traded real estate companies, including becoming Digital Realty’s largest shareholder. Mr. Raval started his career at the top-ranked Citi REIT Equity Research team, which was the lead underwriter for Digital Realty’s IPO in 2004.

Mr. Raval has nearly 15 years of financial services and REIT industry experience. He brings a unique perspective to Digital Realty with his experience as both a sell-side analyst as well as a buy-side investor.

Mr. Raval received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, where he was a Meinig Family National Scholar (awarded to less than 2% of each class). In his free time, Mr. Raval spends time with his family.

Sylvain Remy is the Director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and Smart Cities at ESSEC Asia-Pacific in Singapore. He is a specialist in urban economic geography, public utility industries, and Asian business and economies. He lectures on urban and sustainable development. He used to serve in the French Ministry of Finance as Economic and Financial Attache at the French Embassy in South Korea. Before that, he was an information systems and management consultant with various national public utility operators in France. He holds an MSc in Business Administration.

Camilo Jiménez is an electronic engineer, project management specialist and MBA, who has dedicated his professional career to telecommunications in Colombia, in both the corporate and government sector.

Camilo started designing and analyzing frequency optimization for a variety of wireless communications networks including fixed microwave systems, broadcasting and mobile access networks. Later, he began to work with the telecommunications authorities in Colombia as Comisión Nacional de Televisión (National Television Commission), Agencia Nacional del Espectro (National Spectrum Agency) and lately with Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones (Communications’ Regulation Commission) as senior advisor.

During his service with the Colombian government he has led multiple projects related with the Digital Switchover, the Spectrum Management Master Plan, Quality of services and Infrastructure sharing regulation and has represented Colombia on international forums as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL). More recently, he has been working on the first Digital Economy report in Colombia.

Dr. Basheerhamad Shadrach is the Asia Coordinator of the Alliance for Affordable Internet program. In this capacity, he builds coalitions of private, public and civil society organizations to advance affordable access to both mobile and fixed-line Internet in Asia. Dr. Shadrach also consults for the Global Libraries Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Until recently, Dr. Shadrach served as the Global CEO of the Telecentre.org Foundation. Prior to that, he worked for IDRC, Canada, managing ICT4D research grants in Asia. In partnership with ITU, he has also launched the Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign for offering digital skills to over 1 million women worldwide.

In his three-decade long career, Dr. Shadrach has also served a variety of organizations such as the British Council, Transparency International and OneWorld International. He has consulted for DFID, the Open University, Practical Action and Article 19; ITU; UNDP; and, the ICTA of Sri Lanka.

Mariah Shuman has been with O3b Networks since 2013.

As Director of Maritime & International Regulatory Affairs, Ms. Shuman obtains regulatory approvals for O3b’s satellite services and earth stations; ensures compliance with international and local requirements; and monitors developments regarding spectrum allocation and licensing procedures.

Ms. Shuman is co-chair of the Regulatory Working Group of the Satellite Industry Association, and she served on the U.S.A. delegation for WRC-15.

David started his career as an electrical distribution networks engineer, helping to keep the lights on in Central Scotland. In the mid-1990s, he moved through roles in Scottish Power’s electricity retail deregulation programme and into the second stage of his career as an IT Strategist and Manager. David then spent 4 years at a major international systems integrator and consultancy before joining Teradata around 6 years ago. He works with national and account-focused teams to bring Teradata’s unrivalled data and analytics capabilities and knowledge to the international Utilities and Smart Cities sector.

David lives in Singapore, but has lived most of his life in Edinburgh, Scotland (at least at the weekends). He has a B.Eng from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and an MSc from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. He remains an engineer at heart.

Steve is a research associate and consultant with the Network Startup Resource Center where he works to expand the use of wireless technologies through shared spectrum strategies and to enable greater Internet access throughout Africa and other emerging markets. He has been involved in advocacy for dynamic spectrum regulation related to television broadcast spectrum as well as the implementation of several pilots since 2008.

Since 2009, Steve has been actively maintaining public maps of undersea and now terrestrial fiber optic infrastructure in Africa. He is also the founder of Village Telco, a social enterprise that builds inexpensive WiFi mesh VoIP technologies to deliver affordable voice and Internet options in under-serviced regions.

Previously, Steve worked at the International Development Resource Centre, where he led the organization’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development program in Africa and funded research into the transformational potential of ICTs across Africa. Steve has also been an active supporter of the development of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in sub-Saharan Africa. He writes about Africa telecommunications issues at http://manypossibilities.net.

Leo Sugandhi is a Spectrum Frequency Planning Specialist at Directorate of Spectrum Frequency Planning and Policy of Ministry of ICT Indonesia since 2012. He specializes in spectrum planning for mobile services. He has contributed to the 1800 MHz reframing for 4G in Indonesia, and also works to promote broadband Internet use, IoT and smart cities development. Currently he works to provide additional spectrum for mobile broadband and formulates network sharing regulation in Indonesia.

Before joining Directorate of Spectrum Frequency Planning of MICT, he was a regulatory analyst in Indonesia Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (BRTI) since 2006. He had several roles in formulating regulation, especially in mobile broadband, competition, contents and application as well as OTT.

Additionally, his telecommunication interest is broadband including new technology and spectrum, competition, IoT, smart cities, OTT and rural services.

James manages Asia ex Japan Research and APAC Telecom research based in Singapore. His fundamental research has been recognized through top tier rankings in II and Asia Money, while his stock picking abilities have been recognized by top tier rankings in the Asian Wall Street Journal’s Best on the Street awards.

He has been covering Emerging Markets since 1996, and has been based in Asia since 1998. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, he managed investment portfolios focused on the Asian Telecom, Media, and Internet sectors for eight years at Citadel Investment Group, Oaktree Capital, and Millennium Partners based in Hong Kong and Singapore. James has also provided consulting services to Starhub, a listed Singapore Telecom/Pay TV operator and Kong.com, a listed Chinese Internet company.

Prior to that he covered regional Telecom and Media names for Credit Suisse First Boston, based in Bangkok. His first role based in Asia involved private equity advisory in ASEAN. Post University he spent four years with IBM, serving as a Global Account Manager in the IBM Telecom & Media Group, covering Time Warner, based in New York.

James received an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, in Political Science from Marist College. He has been a guest lecturer for Duke University and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Shrinath is a product management and design thinking coach with over a decade of experience across entrepreneurial and established firms like Texas Instruments, Nokia, Motorola & MapmyIndia.

In his last corporate role, he was heading product management for location-based services on a range of Nokia phones used in more than 100 countries.

Over the last four years, Shrinath has consulted with startups and established firms on product strategy, business planning, product management, product marketing, managing user experience projects, portfolio management, pricing, analytics, crowdfunding and marketing strategies.

He has also coached NGOs across Kenya, Myanmar, and India on the art of storytelling, fundraising & branding in a US state department-sponsored program.

He has been recognized as a Google Developer Expert in Product Strategy for his work with the startup ecosystem.

Chris is Facebook’s lead on spectrum policy and mobile access and in this role is one of the key stakeholders driving Internet.org’s connectivity strategy. Previously, Chris managed Facebook’s partnerships with mobile operators.

Prior to Facebook, Chris was VP of Business Development at LightSquared and VP of Global Development and Roaming at Sprint Nextel. During his career he has consulted with start-ups, wireless operators and also provided consultation to the FCC on a host of roaming and spectrum issues.

Early in his career, at Palm he helped launch the first wireless PDA, and at OmniSky, Chris led the product and business development for its wireless portal. He has an undergraduate degree from Marquette University and an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School.

Dennis Wong works in the Fund Management team at Golden Equator Capital. He is in charge of sourcing and analysing potential investments, reviewing performance levels of current investments, and working closely with portfolio companies to accelerate their growth. Prior to joining GEC, Dennis worked in the Competition and Anti-Trust department at Allen & Gledhill LLP and the Litigation department at Tan Peng Chin LLC. With his legal experience, Dennis is in charge of reviewing and drafting legal documents such as investment agreements and shareholder agreements at GEC. Dennis graduated with a Bachelor of Laws as well as a Bachelor of Business (Banking and Finance) from Monash University.

Amelia Yeo is Senior Manager, Partnership Development at the Internet Society, the world’s trusted independent source of leadership for Internet policy, technology standards, and future development.

In this role, she cultivates and secures new members and sponsors as well as develop and oversee projects across the Asia and Pacific region, including Public Policy, Capacity Building and Internet Standards and Technology.

Prior to joining the Internet Society, Amelia worked with a private communications consultancy acquiring new clients, increasing sales for the company and diversifying their client base to a wider variety of sectors. Her career background includes working for Government Foreign Trade Development organisations in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Macau, the Philippines and Indonesia. She has worked in international marketing, business development, project management, building and managing clients and partner relationships, strategic business and financial planning and forecasting.

She has worked with a wide variety of companies from small companies to global leaders in fast-moving-consumer-goods to education to global infocomm technology leaders including networking and telecommunications equipment, software, testing and, certification etc.