Speakers

  Dr. Jack Bacon • Futurist - Scientist • Keynote Speaker

Jack Bacon Ph.D., P.Eng.
Jack Bacon has often been called “A New Carl Sagan.” He is an internationally-known motivational speaker, a distinguished lecturer (emeritus) of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). A noted futurist and a technological historian. His lectures have captivated tens of thousands of all ages in twenty-six countries on five continents, and he has appeared on numerous radio and television broadcasts. In his daily work, he is on the NASA technical management team overseeing the construction and operation of the most complicated technical project in history: the International Space Station.

A graduate of Caltech (B.S. '76) and the University of Rochester (Ph.D. '84) his extensive career includes roles in the development of many cutting edge technologies, including the development of the electronic office, factory automation. He pioneered the deployment of artificial intelligence systems at the famed Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Jack has written two popular books entitled "My Grandfathers' Clock" and "My Stepdaughter's Watch"

He was the United States' lead systems integrator of the Zarya—the jointly-built spacecraft that forms the central bridge and adapter between all US and Russian technologies on the Space Station built in Moscow by American and Russian engineers and launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in November 1998.

  Rich Therani • Internet Telephony Magazine • Keynote Speaker

Rich Therani is a VoIP industry expert, visionary, author and columnist. In 1998, he founded the leading magazine focused on IP telephony, INTERNET TELEPHONY; and, in his role as president of TMC, is the owner of the registered trademark for the term Internet Telephony. Rich is also the founder and chairman of INTERNET TELEPHONY® Conference & Expo, the leading conference focused on VoIP since its launch in 1999.

As a writer, Rich’s columns appear in every issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY® magazine. He is also the author of “Tehrani’s IP Telephony Dictionary”, a 300+ page guide to over 10,000 VoIP terms, acronyms, products and services. Rich has also been a keynote or featured speaker at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and Expo, as well as at numerous other VoIP events hosted by companies such as Intel/Dialogic, Lucent, Brooktrout and Inter-Tel. He is a seasoned public speaker.

   Dr. Henry Sinnreich • SIP Reception

Dr. Sinnreich is an active meber of the IETF and now works with Jeff Pulver in the Free World Dial-up group. He has been at MCI Communications from 1981 to 2004 and has held various engineering and executive positions working on lightwave systems, digital crossconnects, lab testing and vendor product evaluation/integration and in telephony switch systems engineering. Dr. Sinnreich has worked on Internet and web services since 1993 and has initiated multimedia and voice projects based on standards developed in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), where he is an active contributor, having authored several IETF drafts.

Dr. Sinnreich has received the award of Pioneer in Telephony at the June 2000 Voice On the NET conference, VON Europe 2000 in Stockholm. He is a founding member on the board of directors of the International SIP Forum based in Stockholm, Sweden and is a frequent speaker at various conferences. His book "Internet Communications Using SIP", co-authored with Alan B. Johnston, is considered the reference on IP communications. Dr. Sinnreich has been recently featured on the cover page of the VON Magazine as the ‘Godfather of SIP’.

  Robert Sparks . VP R&D of Estacado Systems

Robert Sparks is the VP of Research and Development at Estacado Systems, providing solutions in real-time IP communications. Prior to Estacado, Robert [RM] was the CTO at Xten, focusing on SIP-based voice, video, instant messaging and presence communication software. Robert is a co-author of the core SIP specification, RFC3261, and several of its extensions. He co-chairs the IETF's SIMPLE working group.

Robert has focused on improving the level of interoperability of SIP implementations by coordinating the SIPIt and SIMPLEt interoperability. Robert is currently on the board of directors of the SIP Forum, is President and a board member of the SIPfoundry,and is an active contributor to the reSIProcate project. Robert has a BSc in Computer Science and a MSC in Mathematics from Texas A & M University.

  Robert Messer • ABP International • Keynote Speaker

Robert is the president and founder of ABP International, Inc. As an expert in market development and product distribution Mr. Messer saw the need for a Technology Distribution Company to help create momentum in emerging technology niches like VoIP by aggregating "Best of breed" products, and combining with profesional technical support, training and focused marketing to help resellers and systems integrators embrace the new technology.

Mr. Messer studied computer science and business administration in Germany and in 1993 Mr. Messer graduated from Harvard Business School's OPM program. Mr. Messer has been instrumental in starting many businesses and was involved in more than a dozen startups in 6 countries and three continents. He was responsible for researching new products, putting together strategic Alliances and doing International business development on a senior level. He also managed projects and launched several startups in Europe and South America, achieving leadership roles for the companies, and the represented products.

Mr. Messer has been a member of the ACM, Association of Computing Machines, since 1982, and been member of, and served on committees in many other technical and industrial associations including IEEE, PCA, NRMCA, MANA and others.

  Mark Spencer • Digium • Keynote Speaker

Mark Spencer founded Linux Support Services in 1999 while still a Computer Engineering student at Auburn University. When faced with the high cost of buying a PBX, Mark simply used his Linux PC and knowledge of C code to write his own! This was the beginning of the world-wide phenomenon known as Asterisk, the open source PBX, and caused Mark to shift his business focus from Linux support to supporting Asterisk and opening up the telecom market! Linux Support Services is now known as Digium, and is bringing open source to the telecom market while gaining a foothold in the telecom industry.

Mark strongly believes that every technology he creates should be given back to the community. This is why Asterisk is fully open source. Today that model has allowed Asterisk to remain available free of charge, while it has become as robust as the leading and most-expensive PBXs. The Asterisk community has ambassadors and contributors from every corner of the globe.

Mark Spencer holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Auburn University, and is now president of Digium, Inc. He has also led the creation of several Linux-based open source applications, most notably Asterisk, the Open Source PBX, and Gaim Instant Messenger.

  Richard Peters . Spatial Data

Richard Peters is President of Spatial Data Inc, a company that since 1988 he has been developing GIS and mapping solutions. Spatial Data currently has a remarkable product line in mapping, rural street addressing, telematics, and VoIP. Lateley Mr Peters has become a frequent speaker and specialist on E-911.
Mr. Peter's served as a Special Forces A Team Commander with the Fifth Special Forces Group in active military duty (1971) and In the Reserve Army, he was Commander of the 281st Transportation Company in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and subsequently, Commander of the 71st Special Forces in El Paso, Texas (1972-1979).

Richard Peters holds an MS Degree in Computer Science from M.I.T. (1981), an MBA Degree in Marketing from the University of Texas (1976) and a BS Degree in Communications from The University of Texas at El Paso (1971). He is an avid private pilot, scuba diver, and stays actively involved in the El Paso State School for Retarded Children. He is a member in good standing of New York Academy of Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.