Open RAN for Beyond 5G Wireless Networks Challenges and visions

October 14th, 2021 | 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM CEST

About the conference

Among the leading experts from the world of science and business, we want to talk about the future of telecommunications and what awaits us after 5G. Work on the next generations of telecommunications standards is underway in many places around the world – with this event we want to give the opportunity to meet and talk to those who develop technologies and those who will implement and commercialize them.

Topics covered:

Wireless network management (e.g. RAN Disaggregation, Micro-service Oriented Architecture, Telemetry Aggregation and Processing, Multi-agent Management, Big Data Analytics, Zero-touch Service Management, etc.)
ML/AI for future wireless networks (e.g. Swarm Intelligence, Event Prediction, Distributed Learning, Federated Learning, Meta-learning, etc)
Emerging technologies (e.g. Cell-free, Large Scale mMIMO, THz transmission, Optical-wireless, HW acceleration, Molecular Communication and Internet of Nano-Things, Large Dimensional Networks, etc.)
Edge and cloud RAN enablers (e.g. Multi-cloud Orchestration, Telco-compatible Virtualization, MEC, etc.)
Energy efficiency, (e.g. Energy harvesting, SWIPT, Green Communication, etc.)
Security, (Security at the Edge, Quantum Communication, Blockchain, DLT, etc.)
Use-cases (e.g. Zero-touch Network, Internet of Everything, O-RAN use-cases, etc.)
Distributed Network Management Orchestration for Next-Generation Sustainability.

Conference in numbers

0 + Minutes

The debate and presentations about the latest trends in building telecommunications networks: ML/AI, Edge and cloud RAN, Security and more.

0 Speakers

Top figures from universities and R&D centers leading the telecommunication revolution. It includes King's College London, University Carlos III of Madrid, Virginia Tech, and more.

0 Target

The target of the conference is to bring together top R&D and business representatives and discuss the future of telecommunications.

Watch live here

Speakers at 5G Made Together Conference

Pedro Merino

Professor University of Malaga, Spain

Dr. Pedro Merino is professor at the University of Malaga (UMA). His research interests are new-generation Internet, 5G/6G networks and automated methods for software reliability. He has led more than 30 national and international research projects, most of them in collaboration with industry. He leads a 4G/5G outdoor testbed at Malaga city. Pedro Merino was the chair of the ERCIM WG on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems, and member of the Executive Committee of ERCIM. He represents University of Malaga in Networld2020 ETP and 5G Industrial Association. Pedro Merino is coordinator of EuWirelss project, technical manager of 5GENESIS project and Director of ITIS Software institute at University of Malaga.

Ana García Armada

Professor University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain

Ana Garcia Armada is a Professor at University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M), Spain. She has published more than 150 referred papers about wireless communications and she holds four patents. She serves on the editorial board of IEEE Trans. on Communications and IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society. She is Member at Large of the Board of Governors and Director of Online Content of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc). She has received awards from UC3M, third place Bell Labs Prize 2014, and outstanding service award from the IEEE ComSoc Signal Processing and Communications Electronics technical committee and from the IEEE ComSoc Women in Communications Engineering standing committee.

Sofie Pollin

Professor KU Leuven, Belgium

Sofie Pollin is professor at KU Leuven focusing on wireless communication systems. Before that, she worked at imec and UC Berkeley. Her research centers around wireless networks that require networks that are ever more dense, heterogeneous, battery powered and spectrum constrained. She pioneered a 5G testbed for distributed Massive MIMO at KU Leuven, and is now leading the way towards 6G tests in multiple large EU projects.

Walid Saad

Professor Virginia Tech, USA

Walid Saad received his Ph.D from the University of Oslo in 2010. He is a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he leads the Network sciEnce, Wireless, and Security (NEWS) laboratory. His research interests include wireless networks, machine learning, game theory, security, unmanned aerial vehicles, cyber-physical systems, and network science. He was the author/co-author of ten conference best paper awards. He is the recipient of the 2015 Fred W. Ellersick Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, and was a co-author of the 2019 and 2021 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper. Dr. Saad is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Osvaldo Simeone

Professor King's College London, UK

Osvaldo Simeone is a Professor of Information Engineering with the Centre for Telecommunications Research at the Department of Engineering of King's College London, where he directs the King's Communications, Learning and Information Processing lab. His research interests include information theory, machine learning, wireless communications, and neuromorphic computing. He currently serves in the editorial board of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine and is the chair of the Signal Processing for Communications and Networking Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He is a co-author of two monographs, two edited books published by Cambridge University Press, and more than 150 research journal papers. He is a Fellow of the IET and of the IEEE.

Dmitry Lakontsev

Professor Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Russia

Dr. Dmitry Lakontsev is associate professor of the practice at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), an expert in IT area, main specialization - wireless communications and IoT. He is the director of the new Project center Next-generation wireless and IoT (CNGW) at Skoltech. The main scope of the center is 5G/6G R&D and wireless technology perspective studies. Skoltech has a private outdoor 5G pilot zone on the territory of Innovation center Skolkovo (more than 2 square km) and 5G Open RAN laboratory. The CNGW is one of the 7 sites hosting O-RAN PlugFest 2021 and is a member of O-RAN Alliance, TIP, and 3GPP. Skoltech is now developing full-stack software for O-DU and O-CU, and software and hardware for O-RU band 78/79. Dmitry is a highly qualified manager with both academic and industry backgrounds, with extensive experience in building high-tech R&D teams, research commercialization, and technology transfer.

Adam Flizikowski

Head of R&D IS-Wireless, Poland

Adam Flizikowski holds the position of R&D expert within the company and leads the R&D team. He has 20 years of commercial experience in wireless systems (incl. LTE, WiMAX, and recently also 5G) and especially topics of RRM techniques (admission, congestion). He is leading the research team of ISRD, he also manages the ECSEL JU project called BRAINE (AI/ML supported micro edge DC) where he deals with workload prediction/placement. He holds MSc from telecommunications and currently pursues his PhD on admission control in future wireless systems. He is author (and co-author) of more than 70 papers from different topics around wireless communications, cyber security and adaptive multimedia systems.

Md Arifur Rahman

R&D Expert IS-Wireless, Poland

Md Arifur Rahman is a R&D Expert working in Is-Wireless, Poland. Focusing on solving the radio resource management (RRM) problems of future wireless networks. Currently, he is team leader of a H2020 project called MARSAL. He holds a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ulsan, South Korea in 2019. Before he joins in ISRD, he works as a postdoctoral researcher at CentraleSupelec, Campus of Rennes, France and contribute in a ANR funded Enhanced Physical Layer for Cellular IoT (EPHYL) project and develop radio resource management algorithm for multi-cell NB-IoT network scenario. He was a co-supervisor of Master students in the area of cooperative relaying in NOMA techniques with 2 years of experience during his PhD degree. His current research interests include cell-free mMIMO, cloud computing in 5G networks, multi-access edge computing, virtual radio access networks, AI application in wireless communications, digital twins, and emerging technologies in wireless communications.

Sherif Sedkey

VWware, Finland

Telco Cloud RAN Technical Specialist- EMEA at VMware. Based in Espoo Finland. I started my career in 2000 at Vodafone Egypt before joining Motorola and then Nokia Networks. I held several positions as RAN Architect, RAN solutions Pre-sales across Nordic, Europe, Middle East, Africa & South-East Asia. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Communication & Electronics Engineering and is currently doing a part-time master’s degree in Business technologies.

Robert Gdowski

Senior researcher IS-Wireless, Poland

Robert currently works in IS-Wireless as a Senior R&D Engineer dealing with Network Function Virtualization and Orchestration topics. Previously he worked as a researcher at Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan, focusing on architectural convergence of MEC, NFV and MANO systems. Robert obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from National Chiao Tung University. His research interests include System Virtualization, NFV, MANO, O-RAN RIC, MEC and distributed networks.

Patrycja Sokalska-Pomacho

Microsoft, Poland

Head of Sales in Microsoft/Azure for Operators team responsible for CEE region. Over 20 years experience in international high-tech B2B companies including Nokia and Affirmed Networks with focus on Sales management, operations management, marketing, pricing strategies and global projects management.

Jeremy Foy

5G & Network Industry Transformation Unit IBM Global Business Services, Hungary

Jeremy is an experienced telecommunications expert with a unique blend of technical acumen and business leadership to help transform carrier outcomes. He leads Business Development for IBM Consulting’s 5G and Network Transformation Unit. As a thought leader, Jeremy partners with open-minded clients to help drive innovation to achieve greater success. Working for both Fortune-500 firms and start-ups, he started his career in business operations and network services. As 3G launched, Jeremy began working across the network including transmission, NOC management, services, and open- networking.

Raimo Kantola

Professor Aalto University, Finland

Raimo Kantola is a tenured professor of Networking Technology at Aalto, Department of Communications and Networking. After years in telecom industry, he graduated with Doctor of Technology degree in 1995 and joined Helsinki University of Technology in 1996 to become a professor. He has been Principal Investigator in many research projects on Internet and mobile networking, including 5G. Prof. Kantola’s recent research has been in Software Defined Networking, Network and System Security, Trust and Green transformation.

Ian Goetz

Network Architect Dell Technologies, UK

Ian is a Network Architect in the Dell Technologies, Telecom Systems Business. He has 34 years’ experience in the mobile communications industry across operator, vendor, consulting and research roles starting in BT Research Laboratories and followed by BT Cellnet, Tellabs, IBM, Motorola, Aircom International, Juniper Networks and now Dell Technologies. He is currently working with the Dell Technologies PLM and Engineering team as well as customers, on ORAN and Telco & Edge Cloud solutions and transformation in 5G.

John Vardakas

Senior Researcher IQUADRAT, Spain

John S. Vardakas received the Dipl.-Eng. in Electrical Computer Engineering from the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, in 2004 and his Ph.D from the Electrical Computer Engineering Dept., University of Patras, Greece in 2012. He has authored more than 40 journal articles and 70 conference articles, while he has participated in more than 15 competitive research programs. His research interests include performance analysis and simulation of communication networks and smart grids. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece.

Tomasz Mach

Staff Engineer Samsung R&D Institute UK

Tomasz holds a PhD in mobile communications from the University of Surrey UK with almost 20 years of experience in the industry. It includes 3G software development, 4G systems engineering, technical marketing, pre-sales and standards development including 3GPP, ETSI, 5GAA and O-RAN. Before joining Samsung R&D UK in 2015, he worked at Orange, Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry and Cisco. He contributed to EU funded 5G R&D projects and co-authored ‘5G System Design: Architectural and Functional Considerations and Long Term Research’ book, many patents, standards contributions and research papers.

Wojciech Burakowski

Professor Warsaw University of Technology, National Institute of Telecommunications, Poland

Wojciech Burakowski is Full Professor position at the Institute of Telecommunications, Warsaw University of Technology and at the National Institute of Telecommunications. He leads the AAI research group (aai.tele.pw.edu.pl). Since 1990 he has been involved in several COST and EU Framework Projects. He is a member of Telecommunication Section of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He was a chairman and a member of many technical programme committees of national and international conferences. He is the author or co-author of about 250 papers published in books, international and national journals and conference proceedings and about 80 technical reports. He supervised 16 Ph.D. dissertations. His research areas include networks techniques for the Internet, (ATM, IP QoS, Future Internet), heterogeneous networks (fixed and wireless), network architectures, clouds (including MEC), traffic control, simulation techniques, network mechanisms and algorithms, and recently designing wide area research networks for 5G.

Janez Sterle

Founder and the CEO INTERNET INSTITUTE, Slovenia

Dr. Janez Sterle is Founder and the CEO of the INTERNET INSTITUTE. His main area of technical work concerns network and services design, planning and implementation in production networks for 4G/5G systems, NATO and PPDR enabled tactical telecommunication system. He holds various U.S. patents in the field of mobile systems and he has an established track record of H2020 research and development and production-grade projects in various industrial sectors. He cooperates closely with the respective industries, practitioners, regulatory, and legislative bodies on strategic and technical levels.

Viktor Melnyk

Professor John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland

Viktor Melnyk is a professor at the Institute of Mathematics, IT and Landscape Architecture, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.. He was awarded the academic degrees of Philosophy Doctor in 2004, and Doctor of Technical Sciences in 2013. He has scientific, academic and hands-on experience in the field of computer systems research and design, computer data protection, cryptographic processors design and implementation, wireless sensor network security. He contributed to IP Cores design methodology and high-performance reconfigurable computer systems design methodology.

Łukasz Mendyk

Comarch, Poland

Łukasz specializes in solutions based on the concept of intent-driven fulfillment and orchestration, as well as on innovative concepts such as software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV) and end-to-end orchestrion of 5G networks with O-RAN and based on distributed cloud.

Arturas Medeisis

Professor Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania

Arturas Medeisis received his Ph.D. in Spectrum Management from the Kaunas University of Technology in 2000. Since then he has worked in various positions in academia, national and international regulatory bodies as well as the mobile industry. His main work focus is spectrum management policies and strategic planning of the development of radiocommunications services. In his previous position as Head of RAN at Telia Lithuania, he led the deployment at the end of 2020 of first in Lithuania 5G NR pilot network in the three biggest cities.

Jordi Mongay Batalla 

Professor Warsaw University of Technology, Poland

Jordi Mongay Batalla is an Associate Professor at Warsaw University of Technology. Jordi Mongay is a Non-CEI expert of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) for 5G cybersecurity and a technical member of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (European Commission). He is a technical adviser of the Polish Government for 5G development and 5G cybersecurity and a technical adviser of Polish Ministry of Infrastructure for autonomous automotive. He is Member of the Polish Normalization Committee and collaborates actively with ITU-T Standardisation Groups. He is an IEEE and ACM Member.

Walter P. Nitzold

Principal Research Engineer National Instruments in Dresden, Germany

Walter is managing European funded research projects with scope of 5G and beyond and driving innovation therefore. His research interests include statistical signal processing, channel coding, wireless communications system design, its prototyping and implications for test and measurement systems. He holds several patents in the wireless domain and is author of several technical papers at international conferences. Walter Nitzold has participated in several national and international research projects such as EXALTED, QoSMOS, LTE-M2M Special Interest Group, FAST, ORCA and PriMO-5G. He graduated from HTWK Leipzig (Dipl.-Ing.) in 2010 and TU Dresden (Ph.D.) in 2015.

Paweł Skrzypek

Chief Multi-Cloud Architect MELODIC project, Poland

Paweł Skrzypek is a highly experienced architect of ICT systems, with extensive knowledge of machine learning and Big Data solutions. Chief Multi-Cloud Architect, working on the MELODIC project and other Cloud Computing projects, focusing on multi-cloud and serverless approach.

Jordi Pérez-Romero

Professor Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain

Jordi is a Professor in the Department of Signal Theory and Communications of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain, where he received a Ph.D. degree in 2001. His research interests are in the field of wireless communication systems, with a particular focus on radio resource management and network optimization for 4G, 5G and beyond systems, including the application of machine learning. He has published more than 250 papers in international journals and conferences and has participated in different European research projects.

Ahmad Ijaz

Research Scientist VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

Ijaz Ahmad received his MSc. (2012) and PhD (2018) in Wireless Communications from the University of Oulu, Finland. Currently, he is working with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Oulu, Finland. Dr. Ijaz is the recipient of several awards including the Nokia foundation, Tauno Tönning and Jorma Ollila grant awards, VTT Excellence award, and two IEEE best paper awards. He has been a visiting scientist at Aalto University, Finland and at TU Vienna, Austria. His research interests include cybersecurity, security of 5G/6G, and machine learning.

Line M.P. Larsen

Photonics Engineering DTU, Denmark

Line M.P. Larsen received her M.Sc. Eng. Telecommunication degree from DTU in 2017. She is currently finishing her PhD studies within the Network Technologies and Service Platforms group, Photonics Engineering, DTU. She is the first author of the paper “A Survey of the Functional Splits Proposed for 5G Mobile Crosshaul Networks”. Her research interests include: functional splits, crosshaul networks, mobile network architectures, 5G and green networks; she won a Best Paper Award at GREEN2019 for the paper: “Energy-Aware Design Considerations for Ethernet-Based 5G Mobile Fronthaul Networks”.

Filippo Cugini

Head of Research Area CNIT, Italy

His main research interests include theoretical and experimental studies in the field of communications and networking. He serves as Coordinator of the ECSEL BRAINE Project, an EU-funded project aiming at boosting Artificial Intelligence at the network Edge. He is co-author of 14 patents and more than 250 international publications.

Filipe Conceição

Expert InterDigital Future Wireless Europe Lab in London, UK

Dr Filipe Conceição is currently an expert in the Next Generation RAN group at InterDigital Future Wireless Europe Lab in London (UK), where he leads on research and standardization activities pertaining to the RAN system and upper layers (3GPP RAN2/RAN3). Prior to InterDigital, He was with Nokia (Portugal) and previously an assistant professor at New University of Lisbon (Portugal). His research interests cover all aspects of future RAN including the leveraging of Artificial Intelligence techniques for Smart RAN. He received his PhD from Université Paris-Saclay in 2019.

Geir Horn

Professor University of Oslo, Norway

Dr. Horn has been the principal investigator and project leader of more than 17 European collaborative projects. Geir is the principal investigator and leader of the MORPHEMIC project whose aim is autonomically to orchestrate and optimize applications across Cloud providers and from the core Cloud to the Edge. Geir has developed several solutions using stochastic combinatorial optimisation based on reinforcement learning and learning automata. His current research interests are on how to optimize large-scale distributed systems through adaptation, autonomic decisions, self-awareness, and emergence.

9:00 AM
OPENING – Slawomir Pietrzyk, IS-Wireless
9:10 AM - 9:30 AM
5GMadeTogether – Partners
- Jeremy Foy, IBM Global Business Services, Hungary
- Patrycja Sokalska-Pomacho, Microsoft
- Sherif Sedkey, VMware
9:30 AM - 9:40 AM
CONFERENCE OUTLINE – Adam Flizikowski, IS-Wireless, Poland
9:40 AM - 10:00 AM
Keynote: Beyond 5G – where are we heading in open-RAN networks – John S. Vardakas, Iquadrat, Spain
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
PANEL I: Security challenges in Beyond 5G
- Jordi Mongay Batalla, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland – moderator
- Ahmad Ijaz, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
- Elżbieta Andrukiewicz, National Institute of Telecommunications, Poland
- Raimo Kantola, Aalto University, Finland
- Ian Goetz, Dell Technologies, UK
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
PANEL II: Central and Eastern Europe approach to Beyond 5G networks
- Adam Flizikowski, IS-Wireless, Poland – moderator
- Viktor Melnyk, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland
- Arturas Medeisis, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania
- Libor Michalek, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
- Janez Sterle, INTERNET INSTITUTE Ltd, Slovenia
11:00 AM - 11:20 AM
mMIMO, cell-free and future fronthaul capabilities in Beyond 5G RAN – Sofie Polin, KU Leuven, Belgium
11:20 AM - 11:40 AM
Core challenges in the workload placement for Beyond 5G – Geir Horn, University of Oslo, Norway
11:40 AM - 12:00 PM
Non coherent communications: from massive MIMO to RIS – Ana Garcia Armada, University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain
12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
PANEL III: The main challenges of ML/AI in the Beyond 5G open-RAN networks
- Geir Horn, University of Oslo, Norway- moderator
- Osvaldo Simeone, King’s College London, UK
- Paweł Skrzypek, MELODIC project, Poland
- Tomasz Mach, Samsung, UK
- Arifur Rahman, IS-Wireless, Poland
12:30 PM - 12:50 PM
Data driven future RAN supported by the distributed Edge fabric – Filipe Conceição, InterDigital Future Wireless Europe Lab, UK
12:50 PM - 1:10 PM
Neuromorphic computing and communications – Osvaldo Simeone, King’s College, UK
1:10 PM - 1:30 PM
Deterministic communication for Beyond 5G, e2e view, new use-cases – Pedro Merino Gomez, University of Malaga, Spain
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM
PANEL IV: Service management in B5G networks (OSS, BSS, MANO, energy efficiency)
- Wojciech Burakowski, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland – moderator
- Line Larsen , DTU, Denmark
- Jordi Pérez-Romero, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain
- Łukasz Mendyk, Comarch, Poland
- Robert Gdowski, IS-Wireless, Poland
2:00 PM - 2:20 PM
AI/ML in future wireless networks – Walid Saad, VirginiaTech, USA
2:20 PM - 2:50 PM
PANEL V: Experimentation platforms towards Beyond 5G

Ljupco Jorguseski, TNO, The Netherlands – moderator

Filippo Cuigini, CNIT, Italy

Walter P. Nitzold, National Instruments in Dresden, Germany

Pedro Merino Gomez, University of Malaga, Spain

Dmitry Lakontsev, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Russian Federation
2:50 PM - 3:00 PM
Road Ahead towards 6G – Adam Flizikowski, IS-Wireless, Poland

About the conference

Topics covered:

Conference in numbers

0 + Minutes

0 Speakers

0 Target

Watch live here

Speakers at 5G Made Together Conference

Pedro Merino

Ana García Armada

Sofie Pollin

Walid Saad

Osvaldo Simeone

Dmitry Lakontsev

Adam Flizikowski

Md Arifur Rahman

Sherif Sedkey

Robert Gdowski

Patrycja Sokalska-Pomacho

Jeremy Foy

Raimo Kantola

Ian Goetz

John Vardakas

Tomasz Mach

Wojciech Burakowski

Janez Sterle

Viktor Melnyk

Łukasz Mendyk

Arturas Medeisis

Jordi Mongay Batalla

Walter P. Nitzold

Paweł Skrzypek

Jordi Pérez-Romero

Ahmad Ijaz

Line M.P. Larsen

Filippo Cugini

Filipe Conceição

Geir Horn

Agenda

Jordi Mongay Batalla 