Signals Growing Industry Support For IOWN GF’s Vision

Wakefield, MA – June 17, 2020 – The Innovative Optical and Wireless Network Global Forum (IOWN GF) announced today that the Board elected three additional Directors: Dr. Yuan-Kuang Tu, Chunghwa Telecom, Mr. John Roese, Dell Technologies and Mr. Gerald Degrace, Microsoft. They join IOWN GF founders Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, Intel and Sony on the Board of Directors.  The Board of Directors is made up of elected individuals from Sponsor Members and is responsible for directing the activities and affairs of the IOWN GF with responsibility for overall direction and management.

“The IOWN GF welcomes new Board Members from Chunghwa Telecom, Dell Technologies and Microsoft. This is a strong signal of growing industry support for IOWN GF and its mission to define the next generation communications infrastructure to help create a smarter world for billions of people,” said Katsuhiko Kawazoe, Ph.D., president and chairperson of the board, IOWN Global Forum, Inc. “Membership growth has been strong.  In addition to the launch of  our steering committees and working groups last month we also published the “Innovative Optical and Wireless Network Global Forum Vision 2030 and Technical Directions White Paper.”

Vision 2030 White Paper And IOWN GF Introduction Webinar

IOWN GF’s Vision 2030 is to define and build a global communications infrastructure over the next decade capable of sustainably maximizing the benefits new technologies offer society and businesses. The hope is to create a smarter world where technology becomes more pervasive for all.  

About IOWN Global Forum

IOWN GF’s objective is to accelerate innovation and adoption of a new communication infrastructure to meet our future data and computing requirements through the development of new technologies, frameworks, specifications and reference design in areas such as Photonics R&D, Distributed Connected Computing and Use Cases and Best Practices. 

Technology, telecommunications, and other industry organizations are invited to join the forum. Based in the United States, IOWN GF membership opportunities are available. More details on IOWN GF and membership information can be found at: https://iowngf.org.

 

Supporting Statements

Chunghwa Telecom

Chunghwa Telecom is a well-established integrated telecom provider that is constantly striving to be a smart life leader and a digital economy enabler in Taiwan through the transformation of customer-centric value creation.

Always Ahead being in our DNA, we are extremely excited about the vision of IOWN of delivering a truly smart and connected world, which resonates with our vision of empowering a new era. We highly support IOWN’s objective and will get actively engaged in exploring the potential use cases and related enabling technologies.

It’s a great honor for us to be part of this community and through close collaboration with great industrial leaders, we hope to make positive contributions to IOWN Global Forum.

Chi-Mau Sheih

Chairman and CEO, Chunghwa Telecom

Dell Technologies

Every technology that matters today and will matter moving forward is powered by data – either creating, consuming, enriching, processing, or analyzing it. At Dell Technologies we’re working to address the world’s continued data growth across core data centers, public clouds and edge locations.  We know this innovation cannot happen in a vacuum, and we ultimately best help our customers by working with organizations across industries that share the same vision. We will work with our peers in IOWN to develop and accelerate the next generation technologies that will help organizations digitally transform. 

John Roese

President and Chief Technology Officer of Products and Operations, Dell Technologies

Microsoft

Microsoft is a world leader in artificial intelligence and high speed computing that is accessible globally through our highly innovative WAN, Metro and Datacenter networks. The next 10 years will require many innovations to enable every person on our planet limitless access to personalized and highly intelligent services that will help us navigate our daily lives. Microsoft shares IOWN’s vision to break free from today’s power and technology challenges and to navigate the next wave of innovations that our future will be built upon. Today we are pleased that Gerald Degrace “Head PM for Azure Networking Hardware and Networking OS” will be joining the board of directors to ensure active participation of the cloud and networking community. Together as a community of innovators we will meet the challenges of the next decade to build a new and better digital world.

Gerald Degrace

Head PM for Azure Networking Hardware and Networking OS, Microsoft