Speakers
Dr Mike Short CBE
Friedemann Laue
Simon Burley
Panel Session
The future of telecommunications is set to be revolutionised by the emergence of 6G and AI-enabled networks, offering unprecedented speed, efficiency, and intelligence. With 6G expected to deliver ultra-low latency, terahertz frequencies, and seamless global connectivity, AI-driven automation will optimize network performance, enhance security, and enable real-time data processing.
Dr Mike Short leads a portfolio career in research & innovation including Chief Architect at the Satellite Applications Catapult. He examines new coverage approaches with converged Mobile/Satellite services and supports the adoption of new technologies including AI and Quantum. He chairs advisory boards for both the UK Telecomms Labs (NPL) and the UK Telecomms Innovation Network, and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey and UCL. Mike was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser for DIT (now DBT) in 2017, where he led technical aspects of the department and worked on UK engineering exports and inward investment. He represented DIT on HMG committees for Telecomms, Space, Health and Quantum, and led overseas delegations to international trade events such as MWC Barcelona and CES Las Vegas. He was an active member of GoScience as a CSA, and Board member at Innovate UK (part of UKRI). His 30-year tenure at Cellnet/O2 UK/Telefonica Group included launching 2G (GSM) and 3G mobile technologies, winning mobile licenses overseas, and later led international research and standards (including 4G / 5G) for Telefonica. He also ran trials for Mobile TV, Smart metering, Driverless cars, Digital Health, and IoT, and managed the company EU office in Brussels. Mike is a former Chairman of the international GSM Association, the UK Mobile Data Association, EM3 LEP , and was President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology in 2011/ 2012. Board roles have also included ETSI, Innovate UK, UK 5G, Phonepayplus, and Trustee of the Archives of IT.
Gerard is a Full Professor in Telecommunications Engineering and has been Head of School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) from 2016-2023 which involved a range of senior management roles and responsibilities covering Teaching, Research, Innovation and Outreach. He holds a PhD in Self-Stabilising Protocols from Ulster University, aspects of which were completed with Prof Jon Crowcroft at University College London (UCL) and one of the Founding Architects of the Internet (Professor Jon Postel) as a Visiting Research Scientist at the DARPA/University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles. His PhD External Examiner was Prof Peter Kirstein from UCL. Within his academic career, areas of research include Self-stabilising Networks, Wireless Sensor Clouds, UAVs for Disaster Response Communications, ICT for the Rural Economy, Converged Network Management & Control Protocols for Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks, delay-sensitive QoSLAs, energy-aware autonomic networking and IoT-edge computing. Gerard has attracted several £millions of external research and commercial funding and has advised government agencies around the world on the allocation of funding to large-scale projects valued in total at approximately £4 billion. His industrial collaborations have included companies such as BT, Intel, ARM, Vodafone, IBM, Aviva, Ericsson, Siemens, InfoSys, Wipro, Tejas Networks, TCS and SAP. From 1997-2007, Professor Parr was a Founding Executive Technical Director of Causeway Data Communications Ltd which eventually sold its main GIS product “Spatialist” to Schneider Geospatial. Gerard is an invited member of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Peer Review College. His academic research collaborations include institutions MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, USC-ISI Los Angeles, University of Florida, University College London, Southampton, Surrey, QMUL, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, University of Oxford, St Andrews, Exeter, Lincoln, Lancaster and Cambridge, Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications (BUPT), Tsinghua University, Peking University and Indian Institutes of Technology in Mumbai, Madras, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mandi and IISc Bangalore. He was previously appointed as a Visiting Professor to the Science Foundation Ireland/CTVR at Trinity College Dublin and to the Emirates-BT Innovation Centre (EBTIC) at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi- UAE. He was International Scientific Advisor to the UK EPSRC National Centre for Doctoral Training in Communications Engineering at the University of Bristol. He was appointed as Senior Guest Editor for prestigious IEEE Journal on Selected Areas of Communications (JSAC) for a Special Issue on Communications Challenges and Dynamics in UAVs. He has extensive experience of working with developing economies, in particular, India, where he was the UK Academic co-ordinator for the major EPSRC-DST India-UK Advanced Technology Centre in Next Generation Networks Systems and Services which was the largest collaboration of its kind between UK and India in the ICT sector attracting total investment of over £20 million and also helped establish a Virtual Graduate Research School for 67 PhD students under the UK-India Education & Research Initiative (UKIERI Programme. Under UKIERI he also led another project in Kalimpong to explore use of wireless sensors to predict landslides in West Bengal. Gerard was awarded an MBE in Queens New Year Honours for 2018 for contributions to Telecommunications Infrastructure in Northern Ireland.
He was previously the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK and Irish Governments on the provision of a Tran-Atlantic Undersea Telecoms Interconnector to North America. During January 2020 Prof Parr was elected to the Strategic Advisory Committee for the UK Government UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) ICT Programme to assist with strategic developments, funding panels and identification of funding priorities. Most recently Gerard has been successful in attracting Co-I funding for a 5-year EPSRC Next Stage Digital Economy Hub called DIGIT (Digital-Innovation-Growth-Impact-Transformation) valued over £12 million which will explore methodologies and business impact of Digital Transformation in Large Organisations.
During 2021 Gerard was also successful as PI to attract £1.4 million funding for the “UK-India Future Networks Initiative” with IISc Bangalore, IIT Delhi, UCL, Surrey, Southampton and BT. Most recently in December 2022 he was successful as a Co-PI on a bid to UKRI-ESRC concerning Digital Technology in Teacher Agency. The £5.3 million fund will support a total of nine projects. He is also an invited Member of the UKRI-EPSRC Digital Security & Resilience Advisory Group and is currently engaging with Innovate-UK and the Department of Telecoms Govt of India.