Schedule

Senior Vice President of Engineering, AI R&D at Qualcomm

Dr. Jilei Hou is a Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. He oversees the AI Research team and is also responsible for companywide AI systems group. Jilei obtained his Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego and joined Qualcomm in 2003. He made substantial contributions in technology innovation, standardization, and product commercialization across wireless 3G/4G/5G standards. In 2011, he moved to Beijing and became the Head of Qualcomm Research China. In this role, he initiated local 4G/5G research and robotics R&D programs that benefit Qualcomm business interests in the Greater China region. In 2017, he moved back to San Diego and currently leads AI Research. He is responsible for developing the AI research infrastructure, driving technical innovations for next-gen AI platforms, and leading forward looking research to benefit technology verticals, e.g., mobile, auto, and XR.

Senior Vice President of Engineering, AI R&D at Qualcomm

Dr. Jilei Hou is a Senior Vice President of Engineering and the Head of AI Research at Qualcomm Technologies.

He obtained his Ph.D. from UC San Diego and joined Qualcomm in 2003. Over the years, he has made substantial contributions in technology innovation, standardization, and product commercialization across 3G, 4G, and 5G wireless standards.

In 2011, he moved to Beijing and became the Head of Qualcomm Research China, where he initiated 5G research and intelligent robotics programs.

In 2017, he returned to San Diego to lead Qualcomm’s AI Research efforts, establishing research infrastructure, driving innovation for next-generation hardware and software platforms, and advancing research to impact verticals including mobile, automotive, and XR.

Under his leadership, Qualcomm built a world-class AI R&D team that leads in power-efficient AI, on-device AI, and GenAI.
Dr. Hou is also an IEEE Senior Member and serves on the External Advisory Board for the Athena AI Institute.

Founding Director, NYU WIRELESS

Theodore (Ted) Rappaport is the David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor at New York University (NYU) and holds faculty appointments in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, the Courant Computer Science department, and the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is the founder and director of NYU WIRELESS, a multidisciplinary research center focused on the future of wireless communications and applications.

Rappaport is a pioneer in the fields of wireless communication, radio propagation measurement, channel modeling, antennas, and software. He has made seminal contributions in radio propagation measurements, statistical and site-specific channel modeling, millimeter wave and THz wireless communications with beamforming, communications system design, and physical layer simulation.

SVP, Samsung

Dr. Charlie Zhang is an SVP and head of the Standards and Mobility Innovation Team at Samsung Research America, where he leads research, prototyping, and standards for 5G/6G and future multimedia networks. He is also serving as the head of the Samsung Research 6G team, where he leads Samsung’s global 6G strategy and technology innovation efforts. He was the Board Chair of the FiRa Consortium from May 2019 to May 2023, where from its founding he led the industry consortium dedicated to the widespread adoption of UWB technology. From 2009 to 2013, he served as the Vice Chair of the 3GPP RAN1 working group and led development of LTE and LTE-Advanced technologies such as 3D channel modeling, UL-MIMO, CoMP, Carrier Aggregation for TD-LTE. He worked for Nokia Research Center and Motorola Mobility for 6 years before joining Samsung in 2007. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr. Zhang is a Fellow of IEEE.

Director of Global Business Development for Enterprise XR/GenAI

As the Director of Global Business Development, Greg focuses on partnerships and projects that use NVIDIA’s professional XR products to bring the benefits of real-time, immersive rendering to enterprise.

Greg’s team also works in the area of combining AI and XR along with GenAI workflows using diffusion models. Previously, Greg was Associate Director of a 200-person academic research institute focused on scientific computing, image analysis, computer graphics, and data visualization at the University of Utah.

Greg holds a B.S. in Physics and Ph.D. in Biomedical Science from the University of New Mexico, and an MBA from the University of Utah.

Dr. Jing Li has over 25 years of experience in the financial industry.

Dr. Li worked as an Investment Manager at the United Nations Pension Fund (with assets exceeding $100 billion) and at Duke University’s endowment (DUMAC) since 2008. There, she oversaw asset allocation, sourced global public and private managers, managed currency trading portfolios, and developed hedge strategies and solutions.

Before entering capital markets, Dr. Li served as a Financial Expert at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and as a Financial Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the regulator of U.S. national banks.

While pursuing her graduate studies in Japan, she also worked as an independent consultant for Nippon Life Insurance Company, the Center for Research in Advanced Financial Technology, and Mathematical Systems Inc. in Tokyo.

Dr. Li holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research and a Master’s degree in Industrial Management and Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Beijing University of Chemical Technology.