GÉANT2 Launch Event Speaker Biographies COPY WITH FLORENCIO
Opening Ceremony
Hans Döbbeling
General Manager, DANTE
Hans Döbbeling joined DANTE as General Manager in August 2004. He holds a degree in Physics and obtained his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1981. He worked for twelve years as an Experimental Physicist in Medium-Energy Nuclear Physics at MPI für Kernphysik Heidelberg, at CERN in Geneva, at KEK in Tsukuba, and at PSI in Villigen.
In the early nineties, he became an IT Services Manager. He was Head of the Analysis Software Development group at GSI in Darmstadt, and subsequenly in charge of the IT Services of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg.
François Biltgen
Minister of Culture, Higher Education and Research of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg
Between 1999 and 2004, François Biltgen assumed the responsibilities of Minister of Labour and Employment, Minister for Relations with Parliament, Minister for Religious Communities and also Minister in charge of Communications. In this last capacity, he was also responsible for the e-Luxembourg plan. Following the elections on 13 June 2004 François Biltgen was reappointed on 31 July 2004 to his duties as Minister of Labour and Employment and Minister for Religious Communities, and found himself entrusted with the duties of Minister for Culture, Higher Education and Research.
Viviane Reding
Commissioner for Information Society and Media, European Commission
Born in Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg) in 1951, Commissioner Viviane Reding is the Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media, which is one of the strategic portfolios to achieve the Commission’s overall policy to enhance growth and employment in the European Union.
This is Ms Reding’s second mandate in the European Commission; she was previously responsible for Education, Culture, Youth, Media and Sport (1999-2004). Commissioner Reding worked as a journalist for the Luxemburger Wort from 1978 to 1999. She was a member of the Luxembourg Parliament from 1979 to 1999 before becoming a Member of the European Parliament in 1989 for two successive terms.
Mady Delvaux-Stehres
Minister of National Education and Vocational Training of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg
Having joined the LSAP (Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party) in 1974, Mady Delvaux-Stehres was initially active in the Socialist Women group. In 1989, she was appointed State Secretary for Health, Social Security, Youth and Sport. Following the 1994 elections, she became Minister for Communications, Transport and Social Security. In 1999, she was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies. During her term as Deputy, Mady Delvaux-Stehres was, within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a member of the Committee on Culture and the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe as well as one of its co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Turkey. Following the general election on 13 June 2004, Mady Delvaux-Stehres was appointed Minister of National Education and Vocational Training on 31 July 2004.
Jerzy Buzek
Member of the European Parliament
Jerzy Buzek is a University lecturer of long standing at Opole, Gliwice and Częstochowa and a researcher at the Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gliwice.
He was elected as a Member of the Polish Parliament in 1997 and was Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001. As Prime Minister, he took Poland into NATO and prepared the country for integration into the European Union.
Vasilis Maglaris
Chairman, NREN Policy Committee – GÉANT Consortium
Vasilis Maglaris has been a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) since 1989 and, since October 2004, has served as the Chairman of the National Research & Education Networks Policy Committee (NREN PC).
He holds a degree in Engineering from NTUA (Athens, Greece, 1974) and a PhD from Columbia University (New York, USA, 1979). Prior to joining the faculty at NTUA, he held various industrial and academic positions in the USA, all in advanced electronic communications. Apart from teaching and performing research on Computer Networks, he was responsible for developing the NTUA Campus LAN and for the establishment of GRNET (the Greek NREN). He served as GRNET's Chairman from its inception (1995) until June 2004. Since 1994 he has served on the Board of the Greek National Regulatory Authority on Communications and Posts.
Session I: GÉANT2 - A Different Kind of Network
Chair
Ulf Dahlsten
Director ‘Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures’– DG-Information Society, European Commission
Prior to joining the European Commission as Director of “Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures” at the Directorate-General Information Society, Ulf Dahlsten was President and CEO of Icon Medialab International, an Internet consultancy offering solutions in eCommerce.
Previously, from 1988 to 1999, Mr Dahlsten worked with the Swedish Postal Services, first as Director-General and following deregulation as President and CEO of Posten AB. From 1982 to 1988, he occupied various posts with the Swedish government, including State Secretary for Energy, then for Communications as well as State Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Ulf Dahlsten holds a Civil Engineer’s degree in Physics from the Royal Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Speakers
Roberto Sabatino
Chief Technical Officer, DANTE
Roberto Sabatino joined DANTE in July 1997 as a Network Engineer. In November 1998 he was promoted to Head of Network Planning and became Chief Technical Officer in August 2002.
Prior to joining DANTE, he worked for two years at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory as a Research Associate. From January 1984 until April 1995 he worked in Italy in the telecommunications industry and at the University of Turin, Italy.
Roberto Sabatino has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Turin.
Dany Vandromme
Vice Chair of GÉANT2 Executive Committee; Member of DANTE’s Board of Directors; Director of RENATER
Dany Vandromme has been a University Professor since 1988 at the National Institute for Applied Sciences at Rouen. As a researcher he is responsible for the Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (LMFN), a component of CORIA, UMR 6614 of CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research).
Responsible for the regional network SYRHANO (Upper Normandy region) since its beginning in 1993, and Chairman of the networking and computing Centre of Upper Normandy (CRIHAN) since its creation in 1992, Dany Vandromme has been a user of ARPANET in the early 80's, and later on of INTERNET, as a post-doc and associate research fellow at NASA Ames Research Center from 1980 to 1990.
He has been Director of GIP RENATER since 1 July 1998. Since January 2001, he has served as a member of DANTE’s Board of Directors. From January 2003 until January 2005, he was Chairman of the DANTE Board.
Patrick Aerts
Director of NOW/NCF; Chair of e-IRG
Patrick Aerts has been Director of the Netherlands National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF) since 1990; he is responsible for the high-end national computing infrastructure. In addition to his role as Chairman of the section of computer applications of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society, he is also an Advisor to the Board of ‘ICT for Science’ of the SURF Foundation where he is responsible for the advancement of ICT-use for higher education and research; he is the sole shareholder of SURFnet bv.
On behalf of NOW, Patrick Aerts is involved in linking universities’ and research organisations’ administrative systems as well as in the set-up of digital academic repositories. He is theme coordinator of NWO’s e-Science Program (“D&I”).
He is currently serving as Chairman of the e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG).
Eva Lindqvist
President, TeliaSonera International Carrier
Eva Lindqvist, President of TeliaSonera International Carrier, has held a long line of positions within the telecom industry.
She has been President of TeliaSonera International Carrier since 2002. She is responsible for all international carrier activities within the TeliaSonera Group. Ms Lindqvist joined Telia in 2000 as Senior Vice President and project leader for broadening the ownership of companies in the Enterprises Business Area. The following year she was appointed Head of the Equity Business Area and became a member of Telia’s Group Management.
Early in 2002, Ms Lindqvist left Equity Business Area for Telia Mobile where she was assigned Senior Vice President with special responsibility for all staff units and overall strategic business development.
Before joining Telia, Eva Lindqvist was employed by the Ericsson Group for 18 years where she held leading positions in Japan, Australia and the US. Back in Sweden in 1998, Ms Lindqvist was nominated R&D Director for Corporate Technology at Ericsson.
Eva Lindqvist holds a Master of Science, Engineering degree, in Applied Physics from Linköping Institute of Technology, Sweden, and a Master of Business Administration from Melbourne Graduate School of Management, Melbourne University, Australia.
Romano Valussi
President of Optical Networking Activities, Alcatel
Romano Valussi joined Alcatel in 1990 as Director of Alcatel's Low-capacity SDH/Sonet Laboratories. In 1998, he was nominated Director of Product Strategy & Management Optical Network of the Transmission Systems Division (re-named Terrestrial Networks Division later on). In July 2002, Mr Valussi was appointed Senior Vice President, Product Strategy and Development and at the end of April 2003, he became President of Alcatel's optical networks activities.
Mr Valussi holds several patents and has written articles that have been published worldwide.
He was awarded a degree cum laude in Electronic Engineering from the University of Trieste, Italy, in 1983.
Session II: Global Development of Research Networking
Chair
Kevin Thompson
Program Director, NSF
Kevin Thompson serves as a Program Director at the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Division of Shared Cyberinfrastructure. He is responsible for the NSF Middleware Initiative (NMI) program, the International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program, and the Experimental Infrastructure Networks (EIN) program.
He started at NSF in January 2003. Prior to NSF, Mr. Thompson was Senior Manager in MCI's Advanced Internet Technologies department, responsible for engineering and operation of the vBNS network and associated advanced services.
Speakers
Dai Davies
General Manager, DANTE
Dai Davies has been General Manager of DANTE for 11 years. He has degrees in Engineering and Computer Science from Cambridge University, and has considerable experience of the translation between technology and service in a broad range of communications activities.
He has worked for various European telecoms operators for over 15 years, both in technical and commercial positions. Before coming to DANTE Dai Davies was director of the COSINE Project Management Unit.
Duncan Martin
CEO, TENET
Prior to his appointment as Chief Executive Officer of South African Tertiary Education Network (TENET), Duncan Martin was Director of Information Technology at the University of Cape Town.
From 1980 to 1989, he was Director (and from May 1983, Chief Director) of the National Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (NRIMS) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria.
Duncan Martin lectured at Universities in the USA, Canada and South Africa. He holds a degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Natal and in 1965 he obtained a PhD in Mathematics from the University of South Africa.
Cem Saraç
Director, ULAKBIM
Cem Saraç is Professor of Engineering at the University of Hacettepe and Director of ULAKBIM (Turkish Academic Network and Information Center). He holds a Ph.D. from Leeds University, U.K.
His current interests are mainly related to computer modelling and simulation techniques. He has been acting as a director of several institutions in Turkey for eleven years in informatics technologies.
Abdelkader Khelladi
Director, CERIST
Abdelkader Khelladi has been CEO of CERIST since 2003. Prior to that, he was Head of the Scientific Council of the Institut de Mathématiques de l'USTHB and, from 2000 to 2003, Head of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Mathematics.
Porfessor Khelladi has published about 40 publications in journals and at conferences in many fields of mathematics and theoretical computer science. In 2005 he published a book in Mathematical Analysis.
Jianping Wu
Director, CERNET
Jianping Wu is Professor of the Department of Computer Science & Technology and Director of Network Research Center, of Tsinghua University. Since 1994, he has been in charge of China Education and Research Network (CERNET). He is a member of the Information Advisory Committee, the Office of National Information Infrastructure, the Secretariat of State Council of China, and a member of the Expert Committee for Information of the State High Technology 863 Project. He is also Vice President of the Internet Society of China (ISC), and vice chair of APAN (Asia-Pacific Advanced Network Consortium) as well as chair of APAN-CN.
Florencio Utreras
Executive Director, CLARA
Since 2002 Florencio Utreras has been part of the team that fostered the creation of CLARA, the Cooperacion Latinoamericana de Redes Academicas, an organisation based in Uruguay aimed at promoting the use of advanced networks in Latin America.
He is currently the Executive Director of CLARA, the Latin American research networking association. He was previously Executive Director of REUNA, the Chilean Research and Education Network.
As a member of the CLARA Board and as a representative of the LA NREN's Mr Utreras has played an important role in the development of the ALICE Project.
Session III: User Support – from Technology to Service
Chair
Karel Vietsch
Secretary-General, TERENA
Karel Vietsch has served as Secretary-General at TERENA since 1996.
He studied Mathematics, Computer science and Economics at Leiden University . He then continued to work at the same university as a teaching and research assistant, and obtained his PhD. in 1979.
Following military service as a systems analyst, Dr Vietsch joined Delft University of Technology to become General Manager of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. In 1984 he was employed by the Ministry of Education and Science as a Senior Policy Advisor for Information Technology in the Science Policy Department.
In 1992 he became Head of Unit for Information and Infrastructure in the Research and Science Policy Directorate of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
Speakers
John Boland
Member of DANTE’s Board of Directors; Chief Executive of HEAnet
In 1997, John Boland was appointed to Chief Executive Officer of HEAnet, Ireland's National Education & Research Network. Prior to that, he worked as Systems and Networks Manager in the Computer Services Department of Dublin City University and represented DCU on the HEAnet Network Management Committee, before its incorporation.
Prior to joining DCU Mr Boland worked in industry with a number of international companies including Marconi Communications Systems in the UK, Motorola Information Systems in the UK and the US and Westinghouse in Australia.
John Boland holds a B. E. in Electronic Engineering from University College Dublin and has embarked on an ongoing M. Sc. in Computer Applications.
Joris van Enst
Director Multidisciplinary Research LOFAR, ASTRON
Joris van Enst holds a degree in Geology. He started his career at the Geological Survey of the Netherlands as a contract researcher in 1986. In 1988 he joined the Ministry of Economic Affairs as a Science and Technology Policy Advisor. He contributed in several functions to research areas like ICT, Material Sciences, Biotechnology, Radioactive Waste Storage, Electricity and Renewable Energy. To that respect he was a representative for the Netherlands Government in several international forums. In 1999 he became Head of the Sciences Department of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, where he was responsible for the policy in all the science fields in the Netherlands.
In 2004, Joris van Enst was appointed Director of Science of the LOFAR project. LOFAR is a wide area sensor network which is capable of combining the largest radio telescope of the world with other sensor applications like geophysics, agriculture, meteorology and ICT.
Rupert Lück
Head of IT Services, EMBL
At EMBL Rupert Lück is managing IT infrastructure and service operations for the sites Heidelberg and Rome and he is a main contributor to the evolving IT platform for advanced cross-site collaboration within EMBL and with the life science community. He joined EMBL in April coming from LION bioscience where he had international IT responsibility for more than seven years. As Head of Global IT Systems he was responsible for building LION’s IT infrastructure including the high performance computing centers at the headquarters in Heidelberg and the integration of the company’s seven international sites. In 2004 he became General Manager for LION’s Professional Services organization taking over development and business responsibility for a novel collaboration platform for drug development in the pharma industry.
Prior to joining LION, Dr. Lück had several IT consulting positions, e.g. with Lufthansa Systems. He holds a degree and PhD from the University of Düsseldorf.
Douglas Van Houweling
President and CEO, Internet2
Douglas E. Van Houweling, President and CEO of Internet2, is also a Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Dr. Van Houweling played a major role in Internet development in the United States. He was Chairman of the Board of MERIT Network, a Michigan statewide computing network, when the National Science Foundation awarded it responsibility for operation and management of the NSFNET national backbone in partnership with IBM, MCI and the Michigan Strategic Fund in 1987. Dr Van Houweling has long been active in inter-university initiatives, serving on the EDUCOM Board and playing roles in establishing numerous initiatives to establish cooperative information technology efforts among universities.
From 1984 until 1997, Dr. Van Houweling served as the Vice Provost for Information and Technology at the University of Michigan, where he was responsible for the University's strategic direction in the information technology arena.
Van Houweling came to Michigan from Carnegie-Mellon University where he was Vice Provost for Computing and Planning from 1981 until 1984. Before joining Carnegie-Mellon, Van Houweling was at Cornell University from 1970 to 1981 as Assistant Professor of Government. Starting in 1976, he took on the additional responsibilities for information technology leadership and became Director of Academic Computing and Central Computing Services in 1980.
Dr. Van Houweling received his undergraduate degree from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. in Government from Indiana University.
