Speakers The Future of Presence

Robert Sparks is a Principal Engineer at Tekelec. Before joining Tekelec, he was the VP of Research and Development at Estacado Systems, CTO at Xten Networks (now CounterPath) and has held management and research positions at Dynamicsoft, Lucent, MCI, and Texas A&M University. For over 8 years, Robert has focused on designing and developing SIP-based IP communications systems. Robert is a co-author of the core SIP specification, RFC3261, and several of its updates and extensions. He chairs the IETF's SIMPLE and GEOPRIV working groups. Robert is a Director for the international SIP Forum which has focused on improving the level of interoperability of SIP implementations by coordinating the SIPIt and SIMPLEt interoperability events. Robert is also an active contributor to the reSIProcate project. Robert has a BSc in Computer Science and a MSc in Mathematics from Texas A & M University.

Dean Willis chairs the IETF's SIP working group and has done so since since it started in 1999. His research interests include computer supported collaborative work and identity management. He developed and deployed VoIP architecture and service delivery platforms at MCI Worldcom, Dynamicsoft, and Cisco Systems. Currently, Dean is a principal with the Texas-based technology and intellectual property consultancy group, Softarmor Systems. He also lectures periodically at Southern Methodist University.

Adrian Georgescu is Founder and CEO of AG Projects. Based in the Netherlands, AG Projects is a leading European company supplying service providers with turnkey SIP infrastructure systems. Adrian is an advocate of IETF standards, member of OpenSER management board, founder and co-chair of the Dutch ISOC SIP Special Interest Group. Prior to starting of his own company, Adrian had accumulated experience with Tomrad Communications, Esprit Telecom, GTS, Ebone and KPNQwest. Adrian's expertise is the design of high-availability infrastructures, addressing and numbering systems, signaling protocols, provisioning and mediation systems, implementation of disaster recovery plans. Adrian has received in 1996 a degree in Electrical Engineering from Faculty of Electrotechnics at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania.

Wilhelm Wimmreuter works as a founder and systems architect with SCCT. He provides Systems Consulting in Communication Technology for suppliers and network operators. His professional career includes various positions with the Communication Group of Siemens AG, software suppliers and network operation companies. His present activities are in the area of Internet based architecture, network- and business design for VoIP and related services. This includes network convergence and the development and verification of sustainable business cases that evolve with the ongoing migration and shift of paradigm.

Olle E. Johansson, Edvina AB, Sweden, is one of the Asterisk developers with many years of experience in open standards networking. Olle is an active Asterisk developer with many years of experience of running Asterisk in enterprise and service provider networks. Olle has been teaching Asterisk since early 2005 and have previously taught many classes in networking, IP, IP security, LDAP, XML and other topics. Olle currently works on enhancing the Asterisk SIP channel and have participated in two international SIP interoperability test events with Asterisk. Olle co-founded Astricon, the Asterisk conference and the dCAP Asterisk certifications, He's also a member of the Digium Asterisk Advisory Board.

Carsten Schiefner works for Telnic Ltd, the registry for .tel. Prior to that he held several positions at RIPE NCC, Deutsche Telekom, Primus Group and Siemens. During his time at RIPE Schiefner was responsible for the coordination of and led all activities related to the ENUM Tier 0 registry for e164.arpa. In this role Schiefner maintained existing and established new contacts with governmental and industry bodies on national as well as international levels. He has been an honorary member of DENIC's Executive Board since July 1998. He has a background in Computer Science and Communication Science.

Arnoud van Wijk is an expert in related Internet Protocol based technologies and e-inclusion issues. Arnoud is currently the ISOC Disability Projects Coordinator and Coordinator and Web responsible for the Real-Time Text Taskforce (R3TF).Arnoud was born deaf in a hearing family and learned to communicate in the hearing word by lip-reading. His high communications skills helped him achieve an advanced degree in biochemistry, studying at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Arnoud has been an active participant in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) since December 2000, where he has co-authored or contributed to various Internet Drafts and RFCs related to the Real- Time Text standard and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). He has worked for a number of companies and organisations in and outside of the ICT and telecom area, such as Ericsson, Viataal (previously know as the Institute for the Deaf) and AnnieS - a Dutch company that sells mobile text telephone and ICT services for the deaf and hard of hearing. Arnoud has been a technical advisor for the European Federation for Hard of Hearing People and to the European Commission on ICT for e-Inclusion. Since 2001, he has also worked with the Trace Research and Development Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madision which has a partnership with the Technology Access Program at Gallaudet University in Washington DC. Since 2007, Arnoud started his own consulting company, working on ICT inclusion issues and technology. His job is making the Internet and it's services accessible for ALL. That means that people with a disability should have the same access to Internet as any other person regardless the type of disability.