At Mobile World Congress 2024, I had the pleasure of interviewing two industry heavyweights: Ishwar Parulkar, CTO of Edge and Telco at AWS, and Savinay Berry, EVP of Engineering Products at Vonage. Our discussion centered on the crucial role of APIs in the telecom industry and the exciting developments on the horizon.

Our conversation kicked off with a focus on recent announcements and demos. Parulkar emphasized the significance of APIs that give access to telco networks, providing developers with new capabilities to create network-aware and network-enhanced applications. This opens up exciting possibilities for channel partnerships between telcos and developers.

Berry drew a parallel between the current state of network APIs and the evolution of compute and storage over the past two decades. He pointed out that while compute and storage have been deconstructed and made accessible through APIs, creating trillions of dollars in value, networks have remained a “black box” to developers. This is now changing, with network services becoming accessible through APIs, potentially unleashing a new wave of innovation.

Looking ahead, both experts highlighted promising areas for API implementation:

1. Anti-fraud solutions, particularly in financial services
2. Video and media applications leveraging Quality-of-Service (QoS) APIs
3. Location-based services for autonomous vehicles, drones, and asset tracking

The interviewees also discussed the challenges and opportunities surrounding 5G implementation, particularly in relation to Quality-on-Demand (QoD) services. While the potential is enormous, there are still hurdles to overcome in terms of deployment, risk management, and changing industry mindsets.

As we wrapped up, we touched on the impact of generative AI on networks and cloud infrastructure. Both experts agreed that this technology will drive significant growth and transformation across the industry.

In conclusion, the next 12 months will be crucial for creating a critical mass of API supply across multiple operators and regions. Educating developers about these new capabilities will be key to driving adoption and unleashing the full potential of network APIs in the digital ecosystem.

Today, I co-delivered a unique tutorial on U.S and global 5G and 6G spectrum challenges, in Washington DC. My co-speakers were veterans in all things spectrum: Charles Cooper (NTIA), Monisha Ghosh (former CTO FCC) and Ira Keltz (FCC).

Spectrum is the lifeblood of telecoms. If you work on 5G/6G (not only spectrum!) and are in industry, academia or government, you really should check out the tutorial slides “Riding the New Wave: Spectrum Strategies for the 5G and 6G Era”.

Here the outline of the tutorial:
1. Introduction by Mischa: Kickstart the tutorial with an overview of key spectrum challenges and opportunities.
2. Overview of Spectrum Landscape by Ira: Understand the evolving spectrum landscape, in the U.S. and globally.
3. 6G Spectrum Deepdive by Mischa: Delve deeper into the roadmap from 5G to 6G, focusing on technologies, spectrum needs and open research & policy challenges.
4. Coexistence & Spectrum Sharing by Monisha: Explore the cutting-edge strategies for efficient spectrum sharing.
5. US Spectrum Priorities by Charles: Learn about the current priorities and strategies shaping the contemporary U.S. spectrum policy.
6G. Conclusions and Q&A

The slides are available here, and a photo for the memory book is below.

🌟 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗴 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰! First row to hear the vision of CEOs, founders and execs of all who matter in 2024: OpenAI, Anthropic, Reddit, LinkedIn, Meta, Bumble, Y Combinator, XBox, Snap, Figma, ARM and the White House.

🎤 Emily Chang: The Queen of Tech Talk
Emily didn’t just moderate; she owned the stage! Sharp, witty, and always on point, she turned complex tech gab into … well … an actual dialogue. Who knew tech talks could be binge-worthy?

🤖 Anthropic’s Daniela Amodei & Dario Amodei:
Anthropic siblings’ mantra? Trust systems, not people. 100% excited & 100% scared of AGI – 200% committed!

🚀 Adam Neumann: From WeWork to Flow
Adam shared the secret sauce to leadership: Speak last, think first – apparently advice from Bezos himself. Also, his journey from WeWork to Flow is like switching from decaf to espresso – same coffee shop, different buzz!

🔐 Anne Neuberger: Refreshingly Technical
Anne, straight from the White House, was given a tough time on stage but she took it like a champion! Her views: cyber offense easier than defense; thus, lock digital doors in critical infra + bring industry communities together. Encrypted health data should be a no-brainer, right?

💡 Vinod Khosla: Free AI for all Americans – wow
Vinod’s throwing free AI healthcare parties and everyone’s invited! His vision? An AI doctor for all and AI tutor for every kid. Move over, human teachers? BTW, open-sourcing Llama was a bad idea.

👾 Steve Huffman: Finding the Middle Path
Steve’s in the Reddit driver’s seat, steering between open info highways and user safety guardrails. And he’s translating the Reddit universe into French and Spanish – au revoir language barriers!

🌍 Reid Hoffman: Real and AI-Fake Reid
Reid (founder LinkedIn) keeps it 100 with internet safety and AI’s open-source debates. His motto: Keep pedaling the innovation bike, but don’t forget to wear your helmet!

🎬 Brad Lightcap: AI in Hollywood
OpenAI got AI ready for its Hollywood close-up. Forget about AI taking our jobs; it’s here to direct blockbusters. Lights, camera, AI action!

🎮 Sarah Bond: Game On!
Sarah’s launching a mobile game store in July – cloud gaming’s getting hotter, and she’s serving up AAA games and of the year.

👦 Snap’s Evan Spiegel: The Kids are Alright
Evan’s keeping Snap snappy and safe for kids, proving tech giants can have a big heart too. Four boys at home? That’s the real leadership training ground!

🎉 Wrap Up
Still reeling from all the insights and inspirations. Thanks, Bloomberg, for this techstravaganza. Can’t wait to see how all these visions unfold into our digital tomorrow!

Last but really not least, I was impressed how you managed stage diversity – kudos!

https://lnkd.in/giupEHi8

(c) Image and video copyright is with Bloomberg!

#BloombergTech2024 #Innovation #Leadership #TechForGood #AI #GenAI #Bloomberg

I just came off the 6G CTO Panel I organized and chaired at 6G@UT in Austin. My esteemed guests on stage were Austin Bonner, Deputy CTO Policy, White House; Erik Ekudden, Group CTO, Ericsson; Danijela Cabric, Prof UCLA & Fellow IEEE; and Ronnie Vasishta, SVP Telecoms, Nvidia.

I started off with some introductory remarks on the importance of innovation, and that it often takes more than a decade to turn a vision into reality. I gave the example of 5G-enabled robotic telesurgery, a field I pioneered almost 10 years ago when at King’s College London. It is only now that this vision is becoming reality!

On the back of these remarks, we started our panel discussions on their personal view of a notable 6G use-case. Not surprisingly, I got a lot of different answers – including automation, education, immersion. We then briefly touched on the lessons learnt from 5G, and how 6G truly differs from 5G. We also discussed some key 6G technologies and the underlying compute fabric.

The two big topics, however, were spectrum and AI. We agreed that the mid/centimetric band spectrum offers most value to the telco stakeholders, however, that hurdles need to be overcome in terms of spectrum co-existence and sharing. AI was centerpiece of our discussions, with important insights on how, where and why AI plays such a pivotal role in 6G.

It’s been 10 years now. To the day. My sister Anita Döhler and I lost our younger brother Eddie. He was such a beautiful soul.

He succumbed to glioblastoma, a rare yet terminal cancer. If only medicine had been in 2014 what it is now in 2024. He may have stood a chance.

Anyway, I was thinking a lot if to publish this very personal message, but I wanted to share the one lesson my little brother has taught us:

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲.

We are taught by the machinery of society to study hard, work, family, career – in one word, to find our purpose. He was different. He saw across time, space, societal rules. His happiness was deep inside. Like a small but persistent flame. Until it was no more.

It took me years to process his absence. The void which never got filled. Only many years later did I find the strength to compose “Timeless Memories” for him. The piece I love to play most. The piece I struggle to play most.

Anita and I are grateful to all the people who have supported him, unconditionally, over his last years, months and days. Rest in peace, our little brother ❤️

MWC is special every year! This year, I had the unique opportunity to interview and discuss with some industry leaders on all things AI, API and AR (the “3x As” as I call them) as well as all things 5G, 6G and Open Networks.

Interestingly, the attendance stats of MWC 2024 bear an intriguing foresight to our industry: more than 50% of this year’s attendees were not from the (classical) mobile industry! Is it becoming a new “CES”? No, it is even bigger and more inclusive: enterprise and consumer-centric companies in attendance sought to understand the opportunities that the API-enabled open programmable 5G networks would yield.

We touched on all of these proof points, as well as other emerging and exciting developments in the telco industry, with the following industry leaders:

• President Chee Ching, President of Far EasTone Telecom, Taiwan.
• Vonage’s CTO Savinay Berry and AWS’s Telco-CTO Dr. Ishwar Parulkar.
• Caroline Chan, Vice President in the Network and Edge Group at Intel Corporation.
• Stephanie Ormston, AVP Digital Services Integration at AT&T.

𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆! There is – after all – something magical about humanity!

The weekend 3-4 February 2024, I have attended a remarkable event! The mission? Saving lives through the magic of skilled surgeons, pioneering robotics and the lightning speed of 5G networks. I had the honor of demystifying the buzz around 5G and latency.

The mastermind behind all that: Vip Patel, MD. An incredible robotic surgeon, a great visionary, a relentless professional, and a wonderful human being.

About 40 years ago, Rick Savata pioneered the concept of robotic surgery. About 30 years ago, Fred Moll – often called the “father of robotic surgery” – commercialized the idea through Intuitive Surgical. About 20 year ago, Jacque Marescaux pioneered remote robotic surgery through his famous Lindbergh Operation.

About 10 years ago, when at King’s College London and sponsored by Hans Vestberg, Ulf Ewaldsson and Erik Ekudden, I pioneered the notion of 5G-enabled surgery as I understood that end-to-end slicing would address SLA, performance and reliability issues. My collaborator then was the amazing robotic surgeon Prokar Dasgupta OBE.

Zoom forward to today: innovation brought us great robotic surgery solutions + slicing-enabled 5G Stand Alone is being deployed globally + robotic surgical skills grow + regulators start to listen. And above all, many surgeons came forward to become pioneers in the use of this magical technology.

So much happened over these 48h in Orlando, so here a summary on my personal highlights:

• listening first-hand to the tech pioneers Rick, Fred and Jacque about the untold stories of their robotic surgery journeys;
• spending quality time with Omar Al Kalaa, PhD (FDA) and Ankit Mathur (White House) to understand some other fundamental challenges;
• incredibly engaging panels with robust yet humorous and kind discussions, with a real appetite to push this forward;
• learning about the wonderful mission and leadership of the Society of Robotic Surgery (SRS) from Vipul (Exec Dir), SHARONA B. ROSS MD FACS (President), Martin Martino MD, MBA (past President);
• UNBELIEVABLE (!) live operation over 10,000 km from Orlando to Dubai and Shanghai, using 5G – yes, 5G (!)
• meeting in-person Silivia Lutucuta, Angola’s Minister of Health; A. Novello, former Surgeon General of the USA; and 10 sitting Presidents of Medical Societies

We know now what immediate issues need to be overcome, from a tech, regulatory and perception point of view. Let’s walk this beautiful journey together!

As for today, I am feeling infinitely grateful for the brilliant minds and spirited discussions. Here’s to pushing boundaries, one bettered life at a time. ❤️

I have always had a deep fascination with how humanity’s perception of time has evolved, shaping our interactions with the world and each other. From the present-focused lives of Hunter-Gatherers, through the Agricultural Revolution’s forward gaze nurtured by the needs of crops, to the Industrial Revolution’s backward glance seeking optimization from the past, each epoch has uniquely contributed to our collective consciousness, and understanding of the Present, Future and Past.

Humanity has historically been cast into three distinct silos: the Past, where scientists toil to decode the gifts of nature; the Present, where artists strive to interpret the daily human condition; and the Future, where engineers envision and create from the void. This segmentation, although productive, often overlooks the potential of interdisciplinary synergy.

Historically, the Renaissance stands as a testament to the power of bridging these silos, igniting a period of unprecedented creativity and innovation. Today, I argue, we stand on the cusp of a new renaissance, one where the symbiosis between humans and machines catalyzes a leap into uncharted territories of coexistence and collaborative creation.

My professional endeavors reflect this belief. In medicine, the advent of 5G-enabled telesurgery represents a bond between healthcare and technology, pointing towards a future where distance and latency no longer hinder life-saving interventions. In the arts, our work with the National Gallery and the National Theatre reveals a shift from transactional to value-driven engagements, highlighting how digital enhancements can deepen our appreciation and understanding of art. Here, technology and creativity converge, not as adversaries, but as partners in innovation.

The ethos of creation over consumption permeates my family life as well. Encouraging our daughters to be creators, we have witnessed firsthand the birth of new renaissance individuals. Dalia combines her martial arts prowess with her artistic talent, transforming broken karate boards into canvases for her paintings. With Noa, we have married tech with the performing art in a groundbreaking and creative way in 2018, which has inspired the pioneering holographic concert of Lang Lang at MWC 2024 in Barcelona.

Yet, a new era is being ushered in: I call it the Era of HumAInity. It is an emerging era with a blend of human ingenuity and AI’s capabilities. My thoughts are increasingly occupied by the challenges and opportunities this coexistence presents. How do we prepare ourselves, our families, and humanity at large for a world where machines are not just tools, but partners? The Era of humAInity demands a reevaluation of our roles, responsibilities, and potentialities in a shared world.

Felt privileged to represent our industry at a full-day 6G event organized by the National Security Council, The White House.

We had some fantastic speakers, including Anne Neuberger, Deputy Assistant to the President & NSC; Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman of the FCC; Alan Davidson, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce & NTIA; and Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director of the NSF.

The technical panels covered 6G technologies, skills, funding and spectrum. I was on the opening 6G tech panel with Tingfang Ji (Qualcomm) and Azita Arvani (Rakuten) and chaired by energetic Robert C. Hampshire (USG DoT).

Post event, The White House’s National Security Council released its principles for 6G technologies. Prior to that, the FCC released its “Principles for Promoting Efficient Use of Spectrum and Opportunities for New Services”.

Policy is moving; now it’s for the industry to make 6G happen!

I was privileged to attend an amazing and truly eye-opening two-day workshop in Hollywood, LA, learning about latest production technologies. I met some of the best people in the field, from innovators to directors and even actors. The highlight to me was to meet in person the wonderful and truly humble crew behind the edits of “Stranger Things”.

NFT Crypto Art: The hottest thing in town for artists in 2021! I just put up on rarible.com/mischadohler an ultra-rare onetime piano recording of my piece “Timeless Memories” from my album “Stories From Another World”. You can find it here. Follow me on Rarible, and let’s start the crypto art revolution :). #nft #rarible

Hello Future! Today, I went back to our server farm at King’s College London, after months of lockdown. I was troubleshooting with brilliant colleagues, i.e. implementing power redundancy, formating servers, and configuring iDRAC. In one word, we are gearing up for 6G! Feels great to be in the field again …

Really proud to be on Amazon Prime as part of an amazing series on cross-disciplinary innovation with the famous 3-Star Michelin Roca Brothers. Commissioned by The Macallan, “Distil Your World London” is a journey of learning and change. You can watch it on Amazon Prime UK under https://www.amazon.co.uk/London/dp/B08PCR4Z2P.  For any other territories, just search for “Distil Your World London”. There is more information about the project on The Macallan website.

Spent all day today at an incredible policy event at Cambridge University, working on policies for all things digital and AI. Among many prominent scientists and politicians, we were lucky enough to have had former Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, with us. What an incredibly warm and knowledgeable person he is!

I am very proud to be part of an amazing team which has co-founded the joint initiative between King’s College London and the iconic National Gallery. The new venture is called National Gallery X (NGX), and was inaugurated by none less than Tim Berners-Lee. NGX will explore cross-disciplinary approaches to creating new museum and arts experiences and technologies of the future. Today.

I drove the Karma Revero today in Los Angeles. You cannot buy it yet but soon. The most stunning car I have driven. EVER. From zero to 100km/h (62mph) in 3 (!) seconds. All electric. I am in love, again!

What a great holiday trip that was, Vietnam 2019: Beautiful landscapes, amazing sun sets and outstanding food. I was blown away by the pristine waters of Halong Bay, the ancient lantern-city of Hoi An and the party-skyline of Saigon.

“World’s First 5G Music Lesson by Superstar Jamie Cullum”

OMG. We pulled it off again and demonstrated the magic of 5G. What a night! Jamie is now my favourite musician, not only because of his incredible music but also because of him being such a warm human being. All this was done for the wonderful charity Music For All. More info is under https://www.facebook.com/musicforallcharity/videos/1331546793678732/.

Didn’t expect IEEE ICASSP 2019 to be that large! More than 3,000 people attended my Plenary Keynote which I gave 15 May 2019 in Brighton, UK, at the world’s largest Signal Processing conference. I spoke about King’s pioneering works in designing the Internet of Skills, Soft Robotics, Explainable AI and Spatial Audio Surround.

Another great day at H-Farm, this time with Francesca Bellettini, the CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, now Yves Laurent. Is she the most down-to-earth CEO of a global brand? What a wonderful person, and so smart — asking the right questions and making incredible observations. YSL is really lucky to having her

So pleased to have become good friend of Rob del Naja, founder and lead singer / artist of British band Massive Attack. Not only is he a wonderful person but also one of the most interesting and progressing thinkers of our generation. Very excited to be part of the AI and robotics painting project, as covered by Wired under https://www.wired.co.uk/article/massive-attack-mezzanine-dna.

Spent the day with none less than Pablo Ettinger, the co-founder of Caffè Nero. He grew the famous coffee chain into a >£100m business. We talked about my company Moving Beans and the challenges around selling coffee and being sustainable. But we also talked about music. Yes! Pablo is actually a musician, a pianist, like me. This is the reason you hear amazing classical music when sitting in at Caffè Nero. He is now supporting emerging artists. Truly inspiring!

Great day out with Marco Bizzarri, the CEO of Gucci. Really intelligent and forward-looking CEO, exploring next generation technologies which could give his industry an edge. One of the few looking beyond his own industry vertical, and a fantastic person too!

Did this just happen? I won the “21st Century Icon Award” for global contributions to technology and the arts. I did not expect this, but am very happy – no doubt :). Here, with incredibly talented painter artist Yuliya Zelinskaya.

At King’s, we did the world’s first 5G concert. Whilst networked performances had been done before, it was the first time that a “commodity” system was used which everybody has access to. I was playing the piano in Berlin under the Brandenburger Tor, whilst my daughter Noa was singing in London in the Guildhall. The latency was just under 20ms and gave us a complete feeling of immediacy. What an emotional night that was! We have discussed the challenges in a 2020 TEDx talk.

What a magic night that was! Organised by amazing Laura Westcott, I was performing in front of an intimite crowd in London in memory of my late brother. I played “Timeless Memories” and “Ouroboros”.

I launched my 5th album “Stories From Another World” in Los Angeles today, with my record label. And we did it in style! Playing in front of 4,000 people. I cannot deny that I was very, very nervous but it went all well! For many years, I had stage fright and the best way to overcome it was, I thought, by going big. That was my largest piano performance. Ever!

I couldn’t believe that news. I was just elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. All the hard work over past years to evangelize technology into the arts and pushing for co-design technology/arts has paid off, not to mention my music compositions. I am very happy and proud to be part of one of the most creative group of people on the planet.

I just met the Latvian President. Humble and approachable, a man of the people. He invited me to speak in front of a large government crowd about innovation and the changing innovation cycles. The video of that talk is below.

This was maybe the most exciting Mobile World Congress (MWC) I have ever witnessed. And if my predictions hold true, it is only to get better. It wasn’t anymore about boring boxes of cellular tower hardware. It was all about software, startups and innovation, new handsets with sexy features, and over-the-top applications for both consumers and industries. We are clearly seeing a fundamental shift on how the telco industry ticks – and that is very timely!

The first disruption is internal to the industry: 2015 is the year where we are truly going software. The implications are that we are now able to reconfigure the telco operations of an entire country from a single software script, e.g. over a cup of coffee in the morning. This means, capacity requirements can be addressed on the fly without needing to send in engineering staff. You guessed it, today’s large operational costs are thus minimized.

The second disruption is external to the industry: Having softwarized the telco operations makes it much easier to address the (often capricious) needs of industries; this MWC thus featured a huge amount of industrial applications, ranging from a connected car to tactile excavator (yes, I am talking about a mobile congress here!). The softwarization, however, also ensured that innovation becomes so much more affordable; the congress was swamped with startups and young industries – innovators and investors alike suddenly started to feel that the huge telecom opportunity is actually addressable, no matter the size.

All that buzz leaves me wondering when the MWC will be the same as CES – 2020? But it gets event better! Ericsson’s CEO Hans Vestberg stated in his VIP keynote: “Telecom in the 90s was manufacturer driven, in the 2000s operator driven, and now vertical industry driven.” With 3G, we figured out that selling hardware boxes is maybe not all we can do with the cellular opportunity; with 4G, we thus focused on offering services to optimize the cellular experience. I am happy, however, that we have finally realized what every decent Internet entrepreneur could have told us some years back: The true value is in offering a compelling solution which addresses a real problem in industries.

As Scania’s CEO Martin Lundstedt has said, “this suddenly transforms the expensive telecoms equipment from being costly to being valuable.” The projected transition towards the digital data value chain will take a while, however. Until then, Mark Zuckerberg will continue flying into Barcelona every year, drink his champaign on the keynote stage, and fly back … without having left a paycheck to improve the underlying infrastructure which actually enables his business.

I gave a keynote at yesterday’s “Innovation in 5G” event at the Digital Catapult in London, arguing that the softwarisation of 5G gives us a unique opportunity to innovate in features rather than systems. That in turn, may very well mean the end of the telco generations “Gs”. I also argued for shortening the Transport Networks to ensure we can meet latency requirements. The keynote did not go down well with everybody …

I felt very privileged to talk along Dr Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. She was clearly briefed for her talk, but I was massively impressed by her native knowledge on the fairly narrow subject related to telecommunications. Kudos, Chancellor!

I spoke today on a panel at London’s Smart City event organized by the city hall. This is where I met our Mayor, Boris Johnson, and where we discussed a car-free London. He did love my red shoes! Definitely very charismatic!

Today was a special day! I met my life-long idol and mentor Sir Richard Branson. He is surprisingly shy but a wonderful person to talk to. I helped his Carbon War Room initiative, and learned a lot on the way.