Andreas Constantinou, Ph.D.
Research Director
Andreas has eight years experience in research, development and strategy in wireless. He specialises in mobile handsets, mobile software market, device management, operator strategy and open source. Andreas has worked on several product and marketing strategy projects for clients including France Telecom, T-Mobile, OMTP, Red Bend, Abaxia and Trolltech, and authored numerous research reports for analyst firms Informa, Ovum and ARCchart. He specialises in providing intelligence on the mobile vendor landscape, analysing market dynamics and identifying mobile industry trends. When not hoping on planes, Andreas spends his time between Athens and London.
Andreas is invited regularly at international telecoms conferences as a speaker and chairman. He serves at the board of advisors at The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), a swedish UI technology company. He is also a monthly columnist for two telecoms print magazines, 'InfoCom' and 'Mobile Telephony'. Andreas holds a Ph.D. in Image & Video Compression from the University of Bristol, UK.
Liz Laffan, MA(IPE)
Principal Analyst
Liz comes to VisionMobile with over 15 years experience in the Technology Industry. Her career portfolio comprises European Telecoms Co's, ISPs, Network Operators and start-up Technology companies. Liz has extensive commercial negotiation and vendor management experience coupled with specialist bespoke software licensing (proprietary and open source) knowledge.
During Liz's 3.5 years with Symbian, she was responsible for a number of specific software domains with regard to outsourced technology management, technical due diligence, roadmap dissemination and agreement of bespoke software specifications. Liz was responsible in particular for the technology areas of Graphics & Multimedia (UI, Fonts, Interfaces, Codecs, Khronos Open standards, OMA), Java (CDC/CLDC, Java Community Process), Networking (SIP/IP standards, WiFi) and Hardware (various chipsets). In 2005, Liz was awarded 'High Individual Performance Employee' in recognition of her achievements in this role.
Currently learning German and residing in Frankfurt, Liz continues to deliberate the intricacies of software licensing, open source and german grammar. Liz has a BA Business Studies (Hons) and an MA in International Political Economy from Warwick University, with a specialisation on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights.
George Voulgaris, MSc
Principal Analyst
George has a multidisciplinary background in academic research, wireless technology due diligence and product management positions.
He has spent four years in the wireless and IP networking industry, including positions as product manager for HP Networking Products at Pouliadis Corp., and inside sales engineer & business analyst for Cisco products at Logicom Group. He is intimately familiar with IP Telephony (SIP, H.323, SCCP, MGCP) and Wireless LAN technologies (In/Outdoor 802.11x WLANs, p2p/p2mp bridging, hotspots, Wireless Mesh, WLMS, VoWLAN).
George holds an MSc in Communications Systems & Signal Processing from the University of Bristol and has published six papers on content extraction from compressed images, including 3 articles published by the IEEE. He is currently submitting his Ph.D. thesis at University of Glamorgan, Wales on content-based image indexing and retrieval. His interests are in telecoms convergence, mobile VoIP, WiMax and network security.
Matthew Rogers
Associate
Matt is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Aroxo, an online trading portal. At Aroxo he created the company strategy, wrote the technical documentation, sourced developers and designers, managed the development, built a heavy-hitting board and is currently planning a high-profile launch campaign.
Prior to Aroxo Matt has worked for T-Mobile and Orange. Whilst at T-Mobile ran the Instant Messaging project, during this time the IM team (circa 30 FTEs) developed TMO's IM requirements, performed its customer and market research, sourced developers, participated in standards bodies and designed and developed the product.
Whilst at Orange Matt was initially a corporate strategist guiding the board on its overall business positioning. He worked on projects such as the launch of the world's first Microsoft handsets, Orange's instant messaging strategy and Orange's 3rd party service strategy. After this, Matt was ran a number of Orange's major partner relationships, including Microsoft, Symbian and Sun.
Matt is first and foremost a practical person, always thinking through how ideas can really be applied to an organisation.
Timo Bruns
Associate
Timo's background in mobile and telecoms spans over 20 years. During this time he has seen mobile phones and other devices shrink in size and multiply in functionality, as well as witnessed industry grow from small to very large.
His work experience includes working in Opera Software as a member of the management team responsible of mobile business unit as well as business development. Prior to that he worked in Symbian in various positions, most recently responsible of several Technology areas and as member of all-licensee Technology Committee. His background also includes Board level representation and extensive public speaking.
Timo has an MSc in Human Computer Interaction from University of London (UCL), and has a lifelong passion in evolving computers to the point that truly intuitive interaction with humans can occur.
Ajit Jaokar
Associate
Ajit is the co-author of the book 'Mobile web 2.0' and is also a member of the web2.0 workgroup. He believes in a pragmatic but open Mobile Data industry – a vision which he fosters through his blog OpenGardens. The OpenGardensBlog was recently rated a top 20 wireless blog worldwide by readers of ‘Fierce wireless’. The OpenGardens blog is also syndicated on the W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative/ Planet Mobile.
His recent talks have included:
· Keynote at O Reilly Web20 expo(April 2007) :
· Mobile World Congress 2007, 2008
· Keynote at Java One (Motorola CTO Padmasree Warrior’s panel)
· European parliament - Brussels - (Electronic Internet Foundation)
· Stanford University’s Digital visions program
· MIT Sloan : Trends in Web 2.0 and social networking
Technical presentations have included
· IMS World in Monaco
· Ajax world in Santa Clara and New York
· Fraunhofer fokus in Berlin
Ajit chairs Oxford University’s Next generation mobile applications panel and conducts a course on Web 2.0 and User generated content at Oxford University. He is currently doing a Phd on Identity and Reputation systems at UCL in London.
Dimitris Mavrakis
Associate
Dimitris has 5 years experience in research and analysis in the telecoms market. His areas of expertise include Next Generation Networks, IMS, LTE, WiMAX, OFDM, mobile handsets and identifying emerging strategies for the operator business. He has written several white papers and award winning strategic reports on behalf of analyst house Informa and has also worked on several consultancy projects for leading telecoms companies, including global operators, vendors and service providers.
Dimitris holds a PhD in 4G networks with several publications and has been a frequent speaker and chair of technical sessions during his academic and work career.
Martin Coul
Associate
Martin has been at the epicentre of wireless and mobile since 1998, including seven years at Symbian, where he was responsible for ecosystem development and relationship management to Symbian strategic partners including Adobe, Opera, Packetvideo and Sun.
Besides outstanding networking skills, Martin has in-depth knowledge of the mobile ecosystem, from application developers to blue-chip corporates, coupled with a commercial and technical appreciation of what makes mobile business tick. Based on these skills, Martin has helped many companies navigate and prosper in the wireless value chain to date.
Based in Cyprus, and a frequent traveller to Europe and the Middle East, Martin embodies the new spirit of working in today's mobile world.
Martin also acts as an Advisor to Clarity Capital Partners, a boutique, corporate finance firm based in London, UK. He holds a Business Studies degree from Bristol Business School at the University of the West of England.
Peggy Anne Salz
Associate
Peggy Anne Salz tracks not only the global mobile telecoms industry, but also the business models and trends that will shape its future. Her drive to separate the reality from the hype and spark debate about issues impacting the mobile industry at all levels has won her international recognition as a brave new voice in the mobile content market. Her most recent report, Mobile Search & Content Discovery’the first of its kind’establishes Peggy as an authority on mobile search and content discovery technologies enabling media companies and mobile operators to monetize the Long Tail of hit-and-miss content. She is currently working on a follow-up report for VisionGain that will identify and analyze the breakthrough mobile search technologies that will help deliver the right content to the right users with the right results including voice and camera search, behavioral targeting and recommendation engines.
As a committed independent thinker and free agent, Peggy has established a successful writing career based on vision, insight, versatility, and over 15 years of industry experience. She comments on daily developments in mobile search and mobile advertising for MoCoNews.net, a site recently described by the Wall Street Journal as “the required reading of the mobile content industry.” She is also a regular contributor to magazines and online destinations such as Mobile Communications International, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Europe, Mobile Media, MusicAlly, and New Media Age. Peggy also writes ‘Agile Minds,’ a monthly column for eContent magazine documenting the breakthrough technologies and companies that will influence the next-generation Internet widely referred to as Web 2.0.
Not one to sit back and watch, Peggy proactively shapes industry debate in the mobile space. Her speaking calendar includes engagements at mobile search and mobile advertising conferences worldwide, where she both chairs the events and leads roundtable discussions. Peggy founded her site and independent consultancy in response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from her mobile search reports and her in-depth analysis for clients in the media and technology business.
Graduating with honors from the University of Pittsburgh, Peggy earned a B.A. in Philosophy of Science, Political Science, and Economics. She is a Fulbright fellow and a member of the International Who’s Who of Professionals.
visionmobile 2005-2008