Panels

Business Models and Strategies for Research Testbeds

In recent years the shift of research focus toward short term goals and practical applications as has favored the creation of testbed initiatives motivated with mixed research and industrial goals. The management of a testbed infrastructure has become a task increasingly similar to that of an entrepreneur managing a commercial startup initiative. It is our intention to address these issues in this panel by sharing experiences, plans and visions on: viable business models for testbed initiatives, the structuring of its commercial offer, the market positioning, managing relationships with industrial partners, designing a testbed organization, methodological issues, and in general all the aspects of designing, planning and managing a successful testbed.

After a short introduction by the panel session organizer, panelists will be asked to present their experiences, visions and plans in the form of short presentations (max. 4 slides and 8 minutes). The presentations will be followed by questions/answers and informal discussion.

Moderator: Albert Sitja, Technology Transfer Director, CTTC, Spain

Panelists:

Dr. Roman Kuznar, R&D Manager, Iskratel, Director, SINTESIO, Slovenia

Frank Steuer, Head, Competence Center Network & Mobility, DAI-Labor, TU Berlin, Germany

Dr. Diego Bartolomé, Research Associate Project Management, CTTC, Spain.

Albert Sitja received the MSc (Ing) degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. He has joined the company Otema,S.A. (AEG Telefunken Group) working in Germany and Spain on advanced Telecommunications projects as group leader (1982-1986). He has been Department manager in Marconi Spain (1986-1989), managing different projects related with advanced software design in different languages and integration of telecommunications equipments, then as Head of business unit in AEG Radiocomunicaciones, S.A in Telecommunications and professional electronics sector belonging to AEG group (1989-1992). He has been nominated Programs Director in Daimler Benz Aerospace Ibérica, S.A(EADS group) working in the aeronautical, space, defence and high technology areas in Spain and Portugal) (1992-1999). He has been Strategic Planning and Business Development Manager in Retevision, S.A Second national global Telecommunications operator in Spain (Auna Group) (1999-2002). He has started in 2003 as Technology Transfer Director in the CTTC Catalonian Technological Telecommunications Centre. 

 
kuznar

Roman Kuznar has been with Iskratel, a major telecommunication vendor since 1996. He has spent most of the time as a project manager for application and services development for public telecommunication networks in the area of intelligent networks, computer telephony and NGN terminal equipment. He currently serves as a Director of SINTESIO, an NGN interoperability test lab endorsed and co-founded by ETSI. He actively participates in ETSI TISPAN standardization technical body. Before joining Iskratel, Roman worked at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at University of Ljubljana as a research assistant.

 

Frank Steuer is a research associate and doctoral candidate at the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Technische Universität Berlin managing various projects funded by the German Federal Government, European Union, and ICT industry. He is scientific head of the Competence Center Network & Mobility. Having spent several research periods at Helsinki University, Oregon State University, and Portland State University, he received both his M.Sc. degree in communication and media engineering and his diploma in mechanical engineering and technical computer science from University of Applied Science Offenburg, Germany in 1997 and 2001 respectively. His research interests include new communication paradigms in future 4G systems, particularly mobility management in converging wireline and wireless networks, context-awareness, and policy-based networking.

 

Diego Bartolomé (Barcelona, 1977) received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in January 2005 and his MSc in November 2000 from the UPC as well. He obtained in June 2005 a B.A. in Management and Business Administration (LADE) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).

He joined CTTC in January 2003 and left in December 2004, where he developed most of the work of his dissertation entitled "Fairness Analysis of Wireless Beamforming Schedulers" (advised by Prof. Ana I. Pérez-Neira). In the period 2000-2004, Dr. Bartolomé has participated actively in several European (UniLAN, MARQUIS, WINNER, NEWCOM, ACE,...) and National (GIRAFA) Projects, which has resulted in more than 20 scientific publications in international conferences and journals. He joined CTTC again in November 2005, after almost 1 year working as a consultant for Gedas Iberia.