Bill Thomas

vice President and General Manager, EDS Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), UK.
 

Speaker Biography: Bill Thomas is vice president and general manager, EDS Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). With revenues in excess of $7 billion and an employee base of 40,000, EMEA is the highest growth region for EDS worldwide. EDS EMEA serves a wide range of public and private sector clients providing consultancy, business transformation, solutions implementation, as well as operations and process hosting services. Previous to his current role, Thomas was regional vice president of EDS UK and\ Ireland, a $3 billion business serving most Whitehall departments as well as a wide range of commercial clients.

He is a recognized authority in business transformation, programme and change management, contributing thought leadership to both public and private sector organisations. Thomas was the keynote speaker at the Smiths Institute seminars on “The role of ICT in raising productivity in the UK.”

Peter Freeman

Assistant Director of National Science Foundation (NSF), USA.

Speaker Biography: PETER A. FREEMAN is Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation, heading the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate. As an Assistant Director he is part of the senior management team that helps formulate national science policy and that operates the NSF. As AD/CISE, he oversees a staff of approximately 100 and a funding budget of over $500M/year. He was founding Dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech in 1990. Dr. Freeman received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1970.

 

Yervant Zorian

Vice President and Chief Scientist, Virage Logic. Vice President, IEEE Computer Society. USA

Speaker Biography: Yervant Zorian has served as Virage Logic’s Vice President and Chief Scientist since joining the company in 2000. Prior to that, Dr. Zorian served as a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies, Bell Laboratories and Chief Technical Advisor to LogicVision.  Dr. Zorian also serves as the Vice President of the IEEE Computer Society for Conferences and Tutorials and is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of IEEE Design & Test of Computers. He founded and presently chairs the IEEE 1500 standardization working group for embedded core test, and has authored over 250 papers and four books. Dr. Zorian has received a number of best paper awards, is an honorary doctor of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, is a Fellow of the IEEE, and is the recipient of the 2005 IEEE Industrial Pioneer Award.
 

Jay Mitra

Founding Professor of Business Enterprise and Innovation at the University
of Essex, UK.

Speaker Biography:  Jay Mitra is the Founding Professor of Business Enterprise and Innovation, Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Research at the University of Essex, and Head of the School of Entrepreneurship and Business, at the University of Essex Southend, UK. He is also the Director of the Scientific Committee on Entrepreneurship for the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and its LEED (Local Economic and Employment) Programme, in Paris, France, and in Trento, Italy. Professor Mitra has held Visiting Professorships at the Universities of Bologna and Bari in Italy, and the University of Kuopio in Finland, and is currently also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Beijing University of Foreign Studies in China.
 

Hanns Windele

Vice President Europe at Mentor Graphics

Speaker Biography: Hanns Windele has worked for almost 20 years in the electronic design automation (EDA) industry. For the past 15 years he has held a variety of sales, marketing and management positions at Mentor Graphics with a proven track record of results.

After finishing his master's degree in Electrical Engineering at Technical University Munich, Windele started as a sales engineer for Mentor Graphics in Germany.  Later on he held the positions of sales manager, European Marketing Director, Managing Director of Western Europe and Managing Director of Central Europe at Mentor before he became Vice-President Europe four years ago.

His experience has given him a deep knowledge of the EDA-market all across Europe.  Previous experience includes technical management for CAE systems at Tektronix. Windele is based in Mentor's European headquarters in Munich.
 

Dr M. Baka

IT Advisor to the Chairman of the Abu-Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (ADWEA)
 

Speaker Biography: Dr M.Baka is the IT Advisor to the Chairman of the Abu-Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (ADWEA). He earned his PhD in Computing from Bristol University in the United Kingdom. He received executive management education at MIT Sloan, Michigan Business School and the Cranfield School of Management.

Dr. Baka has over 18 years of Information Technology and Management Consultancy experience. He had led many projects for blue-chip firms including IBM, Fiat, Tesco and Unilever as part of the European Strategic Program in Information Technology. He also served on the IS steering committee at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Dr Baka’s academic experience includes an appointment at Imperial College (University of London) and a visiting Professor position at Richmond University. He has published numerous papers and cases studies, and has presented at a large number of international conferences and Forums. He has an interest in the areas of Entreprise Resource Planning (ERP) and IT Project Management.