Alex Hills – Distinguished Service Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
Dr. Alex Hills spent years living in rural Alaska, where he worked on providing telecommunication services to people living in the villages. He lived in Kotzebue, Nome and Bethel but worked in more than a hundred small villages across the state. This work is described in his new book, Finding Alaska’s Villages: And Connecting Them.
Later Alex became a university professor. He is now Distinguished Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Affiliate Distinguished Professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Well known in the fields of wireless, telecommunications, and networking technology, he has lectured widely and published many papers and technical reports.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Maciej Kranz – Vice President, Corporate Technology Group at Cisco, and best selling New York Times Author on IoT
Maciej Kranz brings 30 years of networking industry experience to his position as Vice President, Corporate Strategic Innovation Group at Cisco. In this role, Mr. Kranz leads a team focused on incubating new businesses, accelerating internal innovation, and driving co-innovation with customers and startups through a global network of Cisco Innovation Centers. Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Kranz was General Manager of Cisco’s Connected Industries Group, a business unit focused on technology solutions for the Internet of Things. He built a $250M business from the ground up in 18 months and relentlessly evangelized the IoT opportunity across Cisco and the market, making IoT one of Cisco’s major priorities.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell
Former Alaska Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell is President of Pt Capital, an Alaska-based Private Equity and investment banking firm investing in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Finland. Pt Capital is an investor in NOVA, Iceland’s largest wireless provider. Treadwell is also chair of global satellite firm Iridium Communications’ Polar Advisory Board. Both firms serve the “internet of things” market.
Acknowledged as one of the world’s leading Arctic policy experts, he also co-chairs the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Polar Initiative and the Arctic Circle Mission Council on Shipping and Ports.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Hon. Fran Ulmer – Chair, US Arctic Research Commission
Fran Ulmer is chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, where she has served since being appointed by President Obama in March 2011. In June 2010, President Obama appointed her to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. From 2007 to 2011, Ms. Ulmer was chancellor of Alaska’s largest public university, the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). Before that, she was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at UAA. She is a member of the Global Board of the Nature Conservancy and on the Board of the National Parks Conservation Association.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Greg Wolf – Executive Director, WTC Anchorage
Dubbed “Alaska’s International Man” by the media, Greg Wolf is one of Alaska’s most experienced economic development professionals. Wolf is the Executive Director of World Trade Center Alaska, a private, non-profit organization whose mission is to assist Alaskans to compete successfully for trade and investment in the global market place. This is a membership organization with more than 100 companies and individuals. He has held this position since December 2002. Wolf focused attention on export opportunities from Alaska to China and is now helping to focus attention on business opportunities emerging in the Arctic.