From a background of innovation in the music and audio industry, Alan Pound formed Aculab in 1978 to focus on the emerging IT technology market. From specialisation in telecommunications in the mid 1980’s, Aculab moved into PC-based E1 and T1 connectivity products, then subsequently in providing some of the highest capacity and most flexible media processing available, both DSP and host based, for TDM and IP environments.

As well as being Aculab’s CEO, Alan is recognised and respected within the industry as a visionary innovator. From the beginning of the computer telephony revolution on the 1990’s, Alan has contributed to Aculab’s success by bringing several industry firsts to market.

The innovation continues with Alan’s current focus on cloud communications and how it could influence the future of telephony.

Adam Conway is Vice President of Product Management at Aerohive Networks, Inc.; he brings over a decade of experience in the development of networking equipment. Previously Adam ran product management for the branch office and mid-market firewall and router platforms for Juniper Networks and NetScreen Technologies; a role that included managing the Juniper wireless products.

Adam started his career at Cisco Systems as an engineer on the design team for low-end IOS routers including such blockbuster products as the Cisco 2500, 1700, 1600 and 800 series routers. Adam Conway Received an MS in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University. Adam has authored networking and wireless patents.

Jeff Uphues is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Cbeyond Cloud Services, a division of Cbeyond Communications (Nasdaq: CBEY). Jeff sits on the boards of several technology-related companies in the video, collaboration and VoIP industries. He is a recognized as leader within the communications industry.

In a career spanning more than 20 years in technology and telecommunications, Uphues has held numerous leadership positions in sales, corporate development, product development, product marketing and executive management. His experience includes Vyvx, Wiltel, MCI, WorldCom, Bandwidth.com and other emerging technology-based service providers.

Brooks Robinson leads Cbeyonds Cloud Services division. Cbeyond Cloud Services integrates and simplifies enterprise-class technology services in the cloud for small and medium businesses in more than 60 countries around the world. Hosted services include virtual servers, managed dedicated servers, cloud PBXs and software as a service.

Brooks is one of the co-founders of Cbeyond and has held leadership positions in sales, marketing and operations with Cbeyond since early 2000.

Prior to joining Cbeyond, he worked with Cambridge Strategic Management Group, a strategy consulting firm in Boston; Deloitte/Braxton Consulting in Toronto; and held various engineering positions at Nortel in Ottawa.

Brooks is a past-board chair and current advisory board member of The Edge Connection, a not-for-profit organization that offers in-depth and affordable entrepreneurial training programs designed for low-to moderate-income individuals aspiring to start or expand a business. He is also a member and board director of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), a global network of more than 7,500 business owners designed to foster learning and growth.

He holds a bachelor of applied science degree in electrical engineering and management science from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and the University of Queensland (Australia).

Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a full-service value creation communications agency, servicing start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to marketing, advertising, public relations, promotion, events and reputation management.

Comunicano operates globally as a virtual company, with its headquarters in Del Mar, CA. Founded in 1992, since 2000 the company has participated in the exit or IPO’s of 32 companies in the mobile, telecom or IT infrastructure sectors or related industries. The acquiring parties of some of the companies include Google, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, Symantec, Computer Associates, IBM, Citrix, Fidelity Investments and Logitech as well as supporting Accredited Home Lenders, Magor, Boingo and Vringo up to their public offerings.

A veteran of the marketing and public relations industry with over 39 years of experience in all facets of marketing and corporate communications, Andy started his career in the marketing department of a professional sports team at age 14 and has been at it ever since. Since then he has held a series of front line marketing and communications managerial roles with three professional teams including the Philadelphia Wings, Philadelphia Flyers and Denver Nuggets, followed by roles in senior account management within the Foote, Cone and Belding/Impact and guiding the public relations and sports marketing for The Upper Deck Company, before founding Comunicano in 1992.

Often quoted both in the consumer and technology industry press, since 2003 Andy has authored VoIPWatch (http://www.andyabramson.com), a leading industry blog focused on mobile, video, voice, collaboration and over the top technology while also serving as the technology correspondent for the syndicated radio program, Business Rockstars, whose flagship station is KFWB-AM in Los Angeles, CA while also serving as a member of the board of advisors of multiple startups around the world.

Steven Sokol is the Asterisk Marketing Director at Digium. He joined the firm in the summer of 2007 when his company, Sokol & Associates, was acquired. While at Sokol & Associates he developed and marketed the Asterisk Bootcamp, a highly successful training program for Asterisk users and administrators and managed a staff of Asterisk consultants and contract developers. In 2004 Sokol & Associates and Edvina AB partnered to launch AstriCon, the annual Asterisk conference and exhibition. Prior to discovering Asterisk, Sokol architected and managed the development of e-IVR, a voice processing platform and provided communications consulting services. Mr. Sokol has a bachelor of arts degree from Westminster College in Fulton, MO. He lives in Kansas City, MO with his wife Amy and daughter Katie.

Dr. Moshe Yudkowsky has twenty years of experience in product development in high-technology industries.

Dr. Yudkowsky is president of Disaggregate, , a consulting company that helps companies create, understand, and apply revolutionary technology. He is author of The Pebble and the Avalanche: How Taking Things Apart Creates Revolutions (Berrett-Koehler, 2005). He specializes in consulting and education for a particular high-tech industry: speech recogntion, text-to-speech, and biometrics.

Dr. Yudkowsky received his Ph.D. in Physics from Northwestern University; he joined Bell Laboratories in 1987. At Bell Labs, Dr. Yudkowsky worked on several large-scale deployments of speech recognition applications, with responsibilities ranging from architecture to DSP development to application design.

Dr. Yudkowsky joined Dialogic Corp. in 1996 to nurture speech development (Dialogic was purchased by Intel in 1999). Dr. Yudkowsky left Dialogic/Intel in 2002 to found Disaggregate.

Dr. Yudkowsky was editor of the ECTFs Automatic Speech Recognition Task Group for over a decade, and served as Technical Chair of the ECTF in 2001. He was a board member of AVIOS, a national organization that promotes pseech technology. In 2002, he became the first Chair of the Midwest Speech Technology Association, an organization of speech technology professionals.

Larry brings 15 years of sales, marketing and business development leadership experience in emerging communication technologies. Through a variety of engagements, Larry has gained a deep understanding of distribution strategy and implemented channel models that have succeeded in markets ranging from small business through to large enterprise. Based in San Francisco, Larry has filled business-critical roles and provided direction to technology companies ranging from telecom to web-based B2B services. Larry is a native of Montreal, Canada and has been based in the Bay Area for the last 10 years.

Larry brings 15 years of sales, marketing and business development leadership experience in emerging communication technologies. Through a variety of engagements, Larry has gained a deep understanding of distribution strategy and implemented channel models that have succeeded in markets ranging from small business through to large enterprise. Based in San Francisco, Larry has filled business-critical roles and provided direction to technology companies ranging from telecom to web-based B2B services. Larry is a native of Montreal, Canada and has been based in the Bay Area for the last 10 years.

Micaela Giuhat brings more than 25 years of telecom experience to her role leading product marketing efforts at one of the most dynamic equipment suppliers in the communications market. GENBAND is a global leader of IP applications, switching and service solutions, with products deployed in over 600 customer networks and two-thirds of the world’s top tier service provider networks spanning more than 80 countries.

With a unique working knowledge of the wireless, wireline, cable and Internet spaces and the convergent concepts that unify these industries, Micaela has an admirable track record of multi-million dollar revenue and profit growth through initiatives in new product introduction, process and performance improvement, and market expansion.

Prior to joining GENBAND, Micaela held strategic leadership positions at Nortel, Sipera Systems, Netrake, IEX and Newbridge Networks. Micaela received an M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bucharest, Romania, and an MBA from the University of Ottawa in Canada.

Trent Johnsen is Chief Executive Officer of Hookflash Corporation and a member of the companys Board of Directors. He co-founded Hookflash in 2011, bringing more than 25 years of technology industry leadership, Internet, mobile and VoIP expertise, and executive management experience to his role with the company.

Trent Johnsen oversees corporate direction and strategy for Hookflash, including sales, finance, marketing, alliances and channels with a focus on innovation, customers, growth and value creation.

Prior to Hookflash, Trent Johnsen served as Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Canadas first national VoIP Carrier, working with an outstanding national management team and leading technology partners including Broadsoft, Acme Packet, Cisco and Mitel, successfully creating exceptional service innovation and growth.

As a Manager in the Solutions Marketing Group, Brad is responsible for the product direction and marketing strategy of the suite of products offered by Interactive Intelligence. Solutions Marketing is also the outward facing delivery team for webinar, seminar, analyst and media presentations as well as prospect and end customer demonstrations. His experience includes more than 20 years in the contact center and telephony industry, including the past 11 years with Interactive Intelligence focused on both the traditional and IP telephony markets.

Thomas McCarthy-Howe has over 20 years experience in the design and development of next generation communications equipment. Thomas is an active software developer, concentrating on Voice Mashups and their supporting technologies such as Ruby, Rails, Adhearsion and Web as Platform architectures. In 2007, Thomas won the first O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Mashup Contest with his “After Hours Doctor’s Office”. In 2008, Thomas was listed among the most influential voices in VoIP. He also won the VON Magazine Innovator’s Award and he won the first Broadsoft Mashup Contest with his “Disaster Dispatcher”. So far in 2010, Thomas has hosted the first cloud communications summit at IT Expo, and he was also the editor of the Cloud Communications 2010: State of the Art eBook, featuring work from twenty four thought leaders in next generation communications technology.

Thomas received his bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering at University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and attended graduate school at Northeastern University where he studied Digital Communications and Signal Processing. He currently serves on several technical advisory boards and boards of directors. Thomas currently resides in West Barnstable, Cape Cod, Massachusetts with his wife and four children.

Thomas McCarthy-Howe has over 20 years experience in the design and development of next generation communications equipment. Thomas is an active software developer, concentrating on Voice Mashups and their supporting technologies such as Ruby, Rails, Adhearsion and Web as Platform architectures. In 2007, Thomas won the first O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Mashup Contest with his “After Hours Doctor’s Office”. In 2008, Thomas was listed among the most influential voices in VoIP. He also won the VON Magazine Innovator’s Award and he won the first Broadsoft Mashup Contest with his “Disaster Dispatcher”. So far in 2010, Thomas has hosted the first cloud communications summit at IT Expo, and he was also the editor of the Cloud Communications 2010: State of the Art eBook, featuring work from twenty four thought leaders in next generation communications technology.

Thomas received his bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering at University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and attended graduate school at Northeastern University where he studied Digital Communications and Signal Processing. He currently serves on several technical advisory boards and boards of directors. Thomas currently resides in West Barnstable, Cape Cod, Massachusetts with his wife and four children.

Wendy Moore-Bayley, Solutions Marketing - UCaaS, Mitel Wendy Moore-Bayley is a key contributor to the evolution of Mitels cloud go-to-market strategy. This includes the design, positioning and implementation of Mitels recently launched unified communications service - Mitel AnyWare. Prior to joining Mitel, Wendy was Director of Strategic Alliances at Certicom Corp. She has been a speaker at many industry events and has an MBA from McMaster University.

As vice president of QNX Software Systems’ new cloud business, Alec Saunders is responsible for developing strategies that will grow market share and revenue for the company’s cloud products and services. Previously, he served as vice president of developer relations and ecosystem development at BlackBerry, where he built a thriving development community for BlackBerry products. Alec also co-founded Iotum, an award-winning communications startup; served as vice president of marketing at Versatel Networks; and spearheaded marketing efforts for several key initiatives at Microsoft, where he helped launched Windows 95, two versions of Internet Explorer, and the Universal Plug and Play initiative.

Wes joined Sonus in 2011 as Vice President of Global Marketing to expand the company’s marketing, sales enablement and channel activation efforts worldwide. He is an experienced change catalyst with a 20 year track record helping global companies develop and execute integrated business and marketing plans.Prior to Sonus, Wes held positions as:•Chief Marketing Officer at Fonality, where he focused on accelerating the adoption of Unified Communications in a Software-As-A-Service model.•Vice President and General Manager of Global Marketing for Avaya after the company acquired Nortel’s Enterprise division•Wes was with Nortel for 12 years in a number of leadership roles, most recently leading end-to-end marketing, go-to-market and strategy efforts for Nortel’s Enterprise business•He began his career in advertising helping to build brands for companies like American Airlines, Pace Picante Sauce, NationsBank (now Bank of America), The Dial Corporation and GTE (now Verizon)Noting the one word he says that sums him up is “persistent,” Wes consistently demonstrates his belief in the expression “Good is the enemy of great.”

Ian Small is Chief Executive Officer at TokBox, a Telefonica Digital company and providers of the leading WebRTC video chat platform, OpenTok. Ian gets front row seats to watch and help partners create immersive and engaging face to face experiences with video. Before joining TokBox, Ian spent six years with Mark Logic Corporation, during which time he helped guide the company from initial venture funding through to its leadership position for scalable, high-performance XML databases. Previously, Ian was the Chief Strategist and Knowledge Officer at marchFirst and USWeb/CKS, and Chief Technology Officer at CKS Group, where Ian held a broad executive mandate which included corporate strategy, market positioning, knowledge management and merger integration. Ian started his Silicon Valley career at Apple Computer, where he was a member of the Human Interface Group and was responsible for the engineering management and product release of QuickTime VR.

Dan York, CISSP, is the Chair of the VOIP Security Alliance (VOIPSA), the author of the book Seven Deadliest Unified Communications Attacks and was previously the producer and co-host of the weekly Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast. Dan is employed as the Director of Conversations at Voxeo Corporation heading up the companys communication through new/social media. Since the mid-1980s Dan has been working with online communication technologies and helping businesses and organizations understand how to use and participate in those new media. Dan frequently presents at conferences, has authored multiple books and writes extensively online at sites such as www.voipsa.org/blog and Voxeos weblogs at blogs.voxeo.com