Every business, whether startup or established enterprise, irrespective of sector, is operating with unprecedented change, complexity and ambiguity, and a constant need to anticipate and adapt to new market conditions and customer needs. The telecommunications sector is no exception. In this environment, relying upon what worked in the past is a risky, if not untenable strategy.

In this session, Amy Radin will share recommendations on how to execute innovation for commercial impact. Amy brings a pragmatic and provocative perspective based on her personal experiences as an operating executive tasked with turning ideas into viable businesses in highly regulated, competitive industries, as well as research conducted among both corporate innovators and startup founders creating value in a dozen different areas of the economy. Find out more about Amy.

With the growth of digital adoption, the emergence of new technologies and the rise of non-traditional competitors, the financial services industry is changing quickly. In this keynote, Bruce Ross, Group Head, Technology & Operations at RBC, will discuss the transformation of Canada’s largest bank into a digitally enabled relationship bank driven by data insights, including how RBC is harnessing new technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud, and how this 150 year old bank is planning for the future. Find out more about Bruce.

Canada’s future prosperity and global competitiveness relies on the digital transformation of its vertical industries and society. This transformation will be enabled by advanced communication networks and the disruptive and innovative NGN technology that underpin them. CENGN commissioned a study by IDC Research which examines the importance and opportunity for Next Generation Networks in Canada, and defines 3 national goals for the country.  JC will review the conclusions of the report and take an in-depth look on how CENGN addresses these 3 goals. Find out more about JC.

Canada is a world leader when it comes to wireless. But the wireless industry is one that is always changing, and a big change will be the arrival of Fifth Generation – 5G – networks. Cities and rural communities across Canada will see significant economic and quality-of-life benefits as 5G is deployed on a use case basis, demonstrating the impact it could have on a national scale with the right support, according to a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN). Commissioned by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) and developed by Accenture Strategy, the report, “Accelerating 5G in Canada — Benefits for Cities and Rural Communities ,” examines how the deployment of 5G – which will be different than previous generations of wireless technology – will vary by location, and the benefits select cities and urban and rural communities can hope to achieve with 5G adoption. Join CWTA President and CEO, Robert Ghiz, and Accenture’s Managing Director and Global 5G Offering Lead, Tejas Rao, for an in-depth presentation and overview of key findings from the Report including a breakdown of the foundational infrastructure of 5G in Canada; the benefits of 5G for transportation & mobility, precision agriculture, energy management, and rural connectivity; how 5G will enable smart cities; and recommendations for the path forward. Find out more about Robert & Tejas.

Open source has taken centre stage in networking.  Solutions that were primarily proprietary in nature are now rivalled or surpassed by open source technology, and the rapid pace of developing in open source environments has forced most vendors to take part rather than remain in a monolithic product bubble. This has led to compatibility discussions and mass collaboration between the ICT sector’s biggest rivals. These changes are the result of a shift in market structure, where being part of the open community has become paramount to the success of long-time giants of the industry as well as the catalyst of massive growth in newer more adaptable companies.  This panel will explore the major changes open source has had on vendors and service providers, how different companies are harnessing and adapting to these changes, and whether traditional business mantras can survive in the newly transformed open source networking sector. Find out more about each speaker.

Organizations are improving their performance, efficiency, decision making and user experiences by developing game changing applications that use geospatial data and technology. A spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is the framework for facilitating the access, sharing, use, integration and revision of spatial data. SDIs are contributing to a range of new and transformational technologies including: Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Commercial Drone use and Autonomous Vehicles. Find out more about Gordon.

While Canada has a long history of innovative telecommunication advancements, the reality is that far too many Canadians – largely in rural, Northern, and Indigenous communities – lack access to affordable high-speed Internet connectivity. While several environmental and socio-economic factors have led to this; remoteness of communities, high costs, difficulty with backhaul access, slow speeds, and limited options, the reality is that in today’s digital society, affordable, high-quality Internet access means community sustainability and prosperity.

Building on Canada’s long history of technological innovations, we are now on the precipice of the next great leap in rural connectivity – Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. LEO constellations consist of hundreds of satellites orbiting the earth at ~1,000 km beaming down high-speed Internet, everywhere. Many see LEO as an answer to rural, Northern, and Indigenous connectivity because it can deliver an affordable, fiber like Internet experience, at a much lower cost, and in a much quicker time, compared to terrestrial alternatives.

This panel will explore what it will take to make LEO connectivity a reality for Canada’s northern, Indigenous and remote communities, with special focus on the opportunities with LEO from launch, to network, to end-user. Find out more about each speaker.

The CIRA Labs team recently joined L-SPARK secure IoT accelerator program to help solve a massive, industry-wide problem: securing 5G internet of things (IoT) devices. Find out more about Jacques.

This talk will showcase Cilium, a CNI plugin that implements cloud native networking using eBPF for efficient packet processing and network policy implementation. Cilium is an open source project leveraged at CENGN as part of our Kubernetes platforms. It provides L3-L7 visibility and policy enforcement, using eBPF capabilities from the Linux kernel. Find out more about Raymond.

This Technical Track session will describe barriers to adoption of open-source processor IP and opportunities to overcome these barriers.

This session will provide a brief overview of the RISC-V instruction set architecture and describe the CORE-V family of open-source cores that implement the RISC-V ISA.  RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”) is an open, free ISA enabling a new era of processor innovation through open standard collaboration. Born in academia and research, RISC-V ISA delivers a new level of free, extensible software and hardware freedom on architecture, paving the way for the next 50 years of computing design and innovation.

CORE-V is a series of RISC-V based open-source processor cores with associated processor subsystem IP, tools and software for electronic system designers. The CORE-V family provides quality core IP in line with industry best practices in both silicon and FPGA optimized implementations. These cores can be used to facilitate rapid design innovation and ensure effective manufacturability of production SoCs. Find out more about Rick.

Workplace change, higher expectations, and explosive WiFi growth have fueled operational demands that require self-driving networks. See how AI, Machine Learning and Data Science pave the way. Find out more about Robert.