Press Release for
CQR 2008 CHAIRMAN’S AWARD
The Technical Committee on
Communications Quality & Reliability
(CQR) is an IEEE Communications Society international professional
organization that is unique in its service to the quality, reliability and
security professionals of the global communications industry. The IEEE
Communications Society President Doug Zuckerman
and CQR Chair Chi-Ming Chen, AT&T, honored Karl Rauscher and Hossein
Eslambolchi with the 2008 CQR Chairman’s Award at an awards
ceremony during the annual CQR International Workshop in Carefree, Arizona
on April 30, 2008.
Criteria upon which recipients were selected include:
- sustained contributions
in the field of Quality, Reliability & Security of communications services,
networks or systems; - a demonstration
of the core value of a professional society- adding value to others; and - integrity consistent
with that of a role model.
2008 AWARD RECIPIENTS
Karl F. Rauscher, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, USA
for untiring efforts in the
areas of improved reliability, national security, and service to the public
through innovative use of and improvement to the communications infrastructure.
Karl Rauscher
has been a leader in the world’s most prominent quality organizations,
serving in key roles in the U.S. President’s National Security Telecommunications
Advisory Committee (NSTAC) Industry
Executive Sub-committee, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions
(ATIS) Network Reliability
Steering Committee (NRSC), and
U.S. FCC Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC), where he oversaw the development of
over 700 industry Best Practices. He led a highly relevant
study of the communications networks of Europe, aimed at increasing the
availability and robustness of the services that the citizens of the European
Union depend upon for public safety and economic stability. He has envisioned
and implemented numerous projects that resulted in substantially improving
the availability of public communications services for countless individuals
around the world. He is a much sought-after thought leader and advisor,
his opinions and leadership being highly respected by government and communications
industry leaders on five continents. Karl is a member of one of the scientific
communities’ most prestigious circles – as a Bell Labs Fellow he has been
honored for leading the effort that achieved the first 6 9’s network availability
– an industry milestone, and for his visionary leadership in architecting
the instrinsic vulnerability-based critical infrastructure protection framework.
Nowhere is his
spirit of service more evident than during the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001. Karl identified the value that advanced
wireless technology could have in support of traditional search and rescue
efforts and pulled together industry members to establish the Wireless Emergency
Response Team (WERT). Working tirelessly in the days following the attacks, Karl
coordinated the efforts of multiple industry members to search the rubble
for survivors, identify bogus calls for help to prevent rescuers from risking
their lives needlessly, and provide information to concerned families. WERT was also activated for rescue efforts following Hurricane
Katrina, where Karl again led the team in searching for lost survivors and
others who might need help.
In keeping with
his dedication to quality and reliability, Karl holds himself to a higher
standard. A tireless proponent of quality, he pushes
people to achieve higher levels of quality in every situation – often delivering
dramatic quality improvements and cost savings simultaneously. He is constantly
looking for innovative ways to address any problem he encounters, as is evidenced
in his inventions – with over 50 patents, issued and pending. Karl has been
featured as a business and technology leader in numerous high profile media
and is the recipient of numerous awards He devotes
much of his own personal time to furthering the goals of the IEEE and expanding
its influence. For many people, Karl’s name is synonymous
with reliability, dedication and integrity.
Karl Rauscher
has served as the CQR Chair (2004-2005) and Advisory Board Chair (2006-2007).
Karl Rauscher receiving the 2008 CQR Chairman’s Award
from Doug Zuckerman and Chi-Ming Chen
Hossein Eslambolchi, Chairman and CEO of Divvio Inc.
for leadership in converging
networks to IP while instilling high quality, reliability and security standards
throughout the technology and service transformation.
Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi
is chairman and CEO of Divvio Inc.,
a Web portal that allows users to build personalized “channels” of digital
content by leveraging the best and most advanced adaptive learning technologies
and Web 2.0 community behavior. He is also chairman of 2020 Venture Partners, which provides
technology and operations consulting to private equity firms and venture
capitalists in the area of telecommunications infrastructure.
For nearly two
decades, Dr. Eslambolchi led the transformation of AT&T’s network systems
and services. He left AT&T soon after its merger with SBC in late 2005.
Upon his departure, BusinessWeek called him “a critical player in maintaining
AT&T’s status as a technology leader” (Dec. 30, 2005) and noted that
he is “a bold, but pragmatic, visionary.”
Dr. Eslambolchi
served as Chief Technology Officer and advised its top leaders on the formulation
and implementation of a strategic technology vision from 2001 to 2005. Early
on, he predicted that IP would “eat everything” and advocated an architecture
that would allow all services to run on IP and work together with connectivity
to any device. His recently published book “2020 Vision” has set the foundation
of communications industry for the next two decades.
Light Reading
said that “[Dr. Eslambolchi’s] evangelizing has underscored the notion
of where the entire communications infrastructure is heading” when it named
him to the # 1 spot on its list of Top 10 Movers and Shakers in Telecom (Nov.
2003). The New York Times credited Dr. Eslambolchi as “the technological
strategist behind AT&T’s ambitious turnaround plan to become a data
transmission company selling an array of software products like network security
systems” (Jan. 22, 2005).
In addition to
serving as CTO, Dr. Eslambolchi was also President of AT&T’s Global
Networking Technology Services, President and CEO of AT&T Labs and Chief
Information Officer, giving him end-to-end responsibility for implementing
the company’s technology and operational vision for the 21st century. As
President and CEO of AT&T Labs, he led a team of some of the world’s
best scientists and engineers in developing an architecture that transformed
AT&T’s legacy voice and data networks into a converged IP/MPLS network
that now reaches all major business centers around the globe.
As President
of Global Network Services, Dr. Eslambolchi had responsibility for the design,
development, engineering, operations and reliability of AT&T’s global
network, as well as for its Global Network Operations Center – AT&T’s
networking nerve center. As CIO, he provided the leadership that reengineered
AT&T’s underlying information technology (IT) infrastructures with
his unique “Concept of One” and “Concept of Zero” business processes. While
moving AT&T’s legacy networks
onto an IP/MPLS platform, he also directed the convergence of the operation
support systems and customer service systems underlying AT&T’s network,
making AT&T the lowest-cost major carrier. This also improved cycle
times and allowed customers unprecedented access to the network that permits
them to monitor and control their services.
Hossein Eslambolchi
has won numerous Awards including notable AT&T Science and Technology
Medal and became AT&T Fellow and received the most prestigious technical
award in 2002 given to any individual in history of AT&T Communications. Hossein holds
over 1000 worldwide patents – Issued, Pending and in preparation – and was
named as one of the most prolific innovator and visionary in communications
industry and was named “Inventor of the Year” by the New Jersey Inventors
Hall of Fame in 2001.
Dr. Eslambolchi
was CQR’s Keynote Speaker in 1999 and 2000. He has been a strong supporter
of CQR’s activities.
Hossein Eslambolchi receiving the 2008 CQR Chairman’s Award from Doug Zuckerman and Chi-Ming Chen