Gerhard Romen

GWRConsult
Managing Director
Frankfurt, Germany

Gerhard Romen is focused on driving, incubating and bringing to market new mobile solutions and technologies. He has been a long time driver of NFC and serving as the Vice-Chairman as well as the Marketing Chair of the NFC Forum. Lately he has been driving mobile payment and IoT solutions for Nokia, Millicom and Casambi.

Raghu Das

IDTechEx
CEO
Cambridge, UK

Raghu Das MA (Cantab) is CEO of IDTechEx. He has a Natural Sciences degree from Cambridge University, where he studied Physics. He has tracked emerging technologies for over 17 years, providing best-in-class global research and strategic advice. He has helped organizations large and small – from Fortune 50 companies to start-ups, enabling them to make the best strategic decisions based on global insight. Raghu has lectured at over 500 events around the World and leads several research programs including topics covering materials, manufacturing and electronics. His analysis of these industries and market forecasts have been cited globally, in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

Richard G. Hopf

Speech Code GmbH
CTO
Austria

Richard knows a thing or two about to build compelling NFC-enabled products. He is the CTO of SpeechCode – the winner of the Most Innovative Product, Service or Implementation in the 2017 NFC Innovation Award Program. Richard has been an IT architect for 25 years and has developed over 260 IT projects for over 150 international clients of various industry segments.

Cliff Raskind

Strategy Analytics, Inc.
Sr. Director, Smart Devices & IoT
Boston

Cliff Raskind draws on over two decades in wireless, mobility and IT to help Strategy Analytics’ clients win and succeed. His insights and recommendations rely on deep analyst and industry-side experience working with device vendors, operators and a wide range of b2b and b2c solution providers. Cliff was an early member of SA’s Global Wireless Practice, returning to the SA in 2015 after working for Nokia where he ultimately led their Device Intelligence group on a global basis.

Andy Falconer

Falcon Events & Media Ltd
Director and Founder
London, UK

Andy has over 30 years’ experience in the multimedia and events industries. The last 15 years in the technology sector as Sales Director at the GSMA (Mobile World Congress) and at Clarion Events as Commercial Director for the Telecoms, Technology and Payments sectors. He has a passion for the technology industry and ran the NFC and Mobile Money Summits at the GSMA as well as the Payments technology and Bluetooth events series at Clarion Events.

As a Director and Co-Founder at Ably Events he helps businesses, associations and other interest groups create, develop and deliver compelling events building revenue, brand value, profits, scale and capital growth through services ranging from consultancy, partnerships, joint ventures to full event management projects.

Dean Anthony Gratton

Gratton Associates
A technology futurist and columnist
United Kingdom

Dr Dean Anthony Gratton is a technology futurist and columnist. He has worked within the wireless and telecommunications R&D industry where, in his early career, he developed real-time embedded and Windows device driver software, and later moved to providing solution architecture. As such, Dean has created prototypes and developed new products for the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Industry 4.0 (IIoT); the Smart Home, Smart Cities and the Smart Metering sectors. He has worked with technologies to include Bluetooth, NFC/RFID, ZigBee, Wi-Fi and EnOcean. His wireless research work has been patented.

Dean was a former Editor of the Specification of the Bluetooth System: Profiles. He has participated in defining the initial Bluetooth Personal Area Networking profiles, and was active in the Near Field Communication (NFC) technical and marketing committees

Dan Balaban

NFC Times/Forthwrite Media
Editor
Paris, Taipei

Dan Balaban is editor and publisher of NFC Times, which for the past 10 years has been the industry’s most authoritative source for news and insight on contactless and NFC technologies, focusing on retail and transit payments. He has covered contactless and NFC for more than 15 years and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, writing about business, technology and politics.

Claire Swedberg

RFID Journal
senior editor
USA

Claire Swedberg spends much of her days talking with end users, vendors and analysts about the RFID industry and technology.She has experience as a judge in RFID Journal “coolest demos” and RFID Journal best products for 2017.

Ryan Martin

ABI Research
Principal Analyst
USA

Ryan Martin, Principal Analyst at ABI Research, covers new and emerging transformative technologies, including augmented reality (AR), analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). He currently leads the firm’s Manufacturing, Industrial, and Enterprise IoT research. Prior to joining ABI Research, Ryan spent the past several years working at technology market research firms, including Yankee Group and, most recently, 451 Research. Before his time as a market research analyst, Ryan served as a consultant at Mobile Future Institute, a U.S.-based think tank focused on business strategies and marketing tactics for the mobile ecosystem. Additionally, he held advisory, consultative, and managerial positions at a number of early- to late-stage startups. Ryan is frequently quoted and published in a variety of industry and business media, including BBC, CIO, International Business Times, LA Times, Time Magazine, Forbes and WIRED. He is also a regular speaker at client and industry events, and a judge for major awards programs such as the CES Innovation Awards and the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards. Ryan holds degrees in economics and political science, with an additional concentration in global studies, from the University of Vermont and an M.B.A. from the University of New Hampshire.

Lisa Seacat DeLuca

IBM
Distinguished Engineer, Director, & Inventor
Baltimore, MD

Lisa Seacat DeLuca is a Director & Distinguished Engineer, leading the incubation and incorporation of the Digital Twin across IBM’s IoT offering suite and driving the digital transformation of IoT solutions within IBM. Lisa holds a Masters of Science in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, and a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University with minors in Business Administration and Multimedia Productions. This year, Lisa was named Innovator of the Year from Innovation & Tech Magazine. In 2018, LinkedIn named Lisa #1 on their list of Top Voices in Technology and one of their Top 15 Female Voices to Follow. In 2017, Lisa was inducted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame, was named #2 in LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Technology List, named as a Top Women in Tech IoT Influencer by Onalytica, and received an honorary PhD from Claremont Graduate University. In 2016, Lisa was named one of the Most Influential Women in IoT. She was named one of MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35 in 2015, as well as, LinkedIn’s NextWave of 10 Enterprise Technologists Under 35, one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, and IBM’s Working Mother of the Year for Working Mother Magazine. In 2014, she was named one of Network World’s 50 Most Fascinating People in the World of Technology.