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 CQR Chair Scott Poretsky, honored Andrés Ruzo, Bill Huang, Hideaki Yoshino, Kohei Shiomoto and Gengui Xie with the 2016 CQR Chairman’s Award at an awards ceremony during the 2016 CQR International Workshop in Stevenson, Washington on May 10, 2016.
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.
Mr. Huang received his master degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Illinois in 1984. He graduated from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1982 with a bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering.
Mr. Huang was honored as one of the first group of awardees of “Talent 1000” Expert Plan of China. He is Founder and CEO of CloudMinds, Inc. Before CloudMinds, he was GM of China Mobile Research Institute, SVP and CTO of UTStarcom, and with AT&T Bell Labs, early in his career. Mr. Huang is the Sector Director of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Branch in ” Talent 1000” Plan Expert Association; Director of Special Committees for DARPA style technology innovation mechanism working group; Board of Director of China Electronics Association (CEA), Deputy Director of the Committee of Experts of Cloud Computing of CEA, and other social roles.
Mr. Huang has been a new technology advocate for the telecom industry with near 30 years of work experience in the development of key technologies. He has in-depth experience and insightful thoughts in the areas of next generation mobile switching systems (3G/4G/5G), IP media streaming (IPTV/OTT), EPON/GPON, Multi-service mobile Softswitch, Operation Support System (OSS/BSS), Mobile Internet and mobile communication industry.
Mr. Huang is also an advocate of DARPA style technology innovation mechanism in China. His work with the Talent-1000 DARPA Working Group on scientific and technological innovation has led to the success of the DARPA style reform of institutional innovation mechanisms at the national level of science and technology. His work has been recognized by national leaders.
In 1996, Mr. Huang has creatively proposed the “the Network is the Switch” soft switch concept, co-established the International Soft switch Consortium (ISC), developed the first mobile soft switch system in the world, and developed the first carrier-class streaming media exchange and IPTV system. In 2007, He joined China Mobile with the vision to build a R&D center like Bell Labs. He led China Mobile Research Institution in technical innovation, research and development, he also creatively proposed the strategic concept of constructing the three major infrastructures (network, applications and terminals) of the next-generation mobile internet for the carriers. He promoted the TD-LTE to be an internationally mainstream 4G standard, and developed the first operator-based Android smartphone open operating system (OMS). In addition, he has initiated the adoption of Hadoop and OpenStack technology, carrying out development of cloud computing and big data platform, to build China Mobile “Big Cloud” cloud computing platform, which has successfully supported the world’s largest operator of public and private clouds construction and services. In 2012, Mr. Huang has created a new architecture for building intelligent robotics system, the cloud-based robot system. The idea is to split the robot into three parts, the brain (cloud) and nerve (mobile network), and body (terminal). With this vision, we can build and operate very intelligent and mobile servicing robots that can help companies and families.
Mr. Huang is also a successful serial technology entrepreneur. He co-founded UTStarcom in 1995 and also served as founding CEO of Wacos, which was a soft-switch system company started as a spinoff of UTStarcom in 1997. Wacos merged with UTStarcom in 1999. UTStarcom did IPO on NASDAQ in 2000. Now, after 8 years working for China Mobile, he is starting his third company. In March, 2015, Mr. Huang leads a team of top talents to found CloudMinds Inc., the first cloud-based intelligent robot technology and operating company in the world.
Andres Ruzo is the Founder of LinkAmerica.
Born and raised in Lima, Peru, Andres came to the United States in 1980 and earned an engineering degree at Texas A&M University. After working in Houston in oil exploration and then commercial real estate, he moved to Dallas in 1992 to pursue his career as an entrepreneur, and founded LinkAmerica in 1994 as a firm that sold refurbished equipment within the communications industry. From 1994-2001, business boomed. Then, due to extended reductions in the capital and expense budgets in telecommunications industry, business experienced a sustained decline. By 2007, Andres was close to putting LinkAmerica into bankruptcy.
In the midst of this period of intense challenge to his spirit and capabilities, he recognized the importance of “thought leadership” and innovation in creating measurable value for LinkAmerica’s customers in metrics important to those customers. With this new direction, Andres transformed the company from one that focused on the end of life management of mature network technology to one that focused on providing innovative logistics solutions and a suite of technical professional services. The success of this strategy led to LinkAmerica’s ranking in 2011 as the second fastest-growing Hispanic company in the U.S. (Hispanic Business Magazine’s “100 Fastest-Growing Companies”).
Thanks to Andres’ visionary and innovative reinvention of the company, LinkAmerica has sustained double-digit percentage annual revenue growth from $12 million in 2008 to $214 million in 2011. The revenue outlook for 2012 is $250 million. According to Andres, “In the business world, it’s about persistence, commitment and faith.” Despite his direct impact on the company’s success, Andres believes it is not about him, but rather, how he is using the talents and opportunities God is continuously providing. He believes the actions that have made him a strong leader are due the positive influence his faith has had on his life. His motto, which he has taught his own children since their infancy, is: “Choose your faith and live it on a daily basis, aligning your thoughts, words, and actions around it.”
He published 70+ journal papers and 130+ reviewed international conference papers in academic societies such as IEEE and IEICE. He published 6 RFCs in IETF. He produced many technologies to innovate Internet, Mobile, and Cloud.
Senior Manager at NTT Network Technology Laboratories; supervising Communication Traffic & Service Quality Project (2012 – 2016)
Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor, Group Leader at NTT Service Integration Laboratories; supervising the Traffic Engineering Group (2011 – 2012)
Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor, Group Leader at NTT Network Service Systems Laboratories; supervising the IP and Optical Networking Group (2006 – 2011)
Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor: Leading the research of IP and optical networking (network architecture, IETF standardization, multi-layer traffic engineering) (2002 – 2006)
Senior Research Engineer: Leading the architecture design for high-speed IP/MPLS label switching router research project. Leading photonic IP router design, routing algorithm, and IETF GMPLS standardization (1998 – 2002)
Research Engineer: Development commercial ATM switching systems. Research of high-speed networking technologies including ATM traffic control, measurement-based admission control, and ATM switch design (1993 -1998)
Research Staff: Developmental research of ATM switching node system (1989 – 1993)
During 1996 and 1997, Kohei was also a visiting Scholar at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri where he was engaged in research of high-speed networking technologies including dynamic flow switching and soft-state ATM switching.
Gengui Xie, Vice President of R&D Competence Center – Huawei Technologies
Gengui Xie joined Huawei in 1996 and has more than 20 years experience in telecom area. He is a leading expert on network management system and design for RAS (Reliability, Availability and serviceability). As VP of Huawei R&D Competence Center, Gengui is responsible for designing product architecture, reliability, serviceability, energy saving and emission reduction, technical planning and solutions.
Mr. Xie graduated with a degree from South-East University in China
Hideaki Yoshino received the B.Sc., M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees in information science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1983, 1985 and 2010, respectively. He joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) Laboratories in 1985 and has been engaged in communication traffic and service quality research. As a visiting scholar, he stayed at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, during 1990 – 1991. He has served as a project manager of NTT Service Integration Laboratories, where he has been conducting research and management on traffic and quality for future communications networks and services. In 2012, he moved to Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Nippon Institute of Technology. Dr. Yoshino is a member of IEEE, IEICE (Fellow) Japan, the Operations Research Society of Japan, and recently served as chair of the CQR-Technical Committee.