Keynote Speech moderator
XGMF 6G Promotion Project leader

Takehiro Nakamura

Mr. Takehiro Nakamura is a leading expert in mobile communication and has played a key role in setting international standards for many years. He now works as the 6G Promotion Project Leader at the XG Mobile Promotion Forum (XGMF), helping to shape Japan’s 6G strategy and build stronger ties with other countries.
With his deep experience in global meetings and his wide network, he acts as a bridge between Japan and the world. He is also the Chief Standardization Officer (CSO) at NTT DOCOMO, Inc.

Senior Manager, Spectrum Planning Office, NTT DOCOMO, INC.

Hiroyuki Atarashi

Dr. Hiroyuki Atarashi is currently the Chair of ITU-R Working Party 5D (WP 5D), an expert group focused on IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications) within ITU-R. Following his involvement in the research and development of 4th generation mobile communication systems at NTT DOCOMO, INC., he initiated international standardization activities for IMT in 2006. Since then, he has actively participated in these standardization efforts within ITU-R and APT (Asia-Pacific Telecommunity). He has been attending ITU World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC) since 2007. At the 2023 WRC held in Dubai, he served as the Committee Chair responsible for agenda items related to terrestrial services.

Head of Architecture, Security and Automation
Nokia Standards, Strategy & Technology

Simone Redana

Dr. Simone Redana is the Head responsible for research and standardization of Architecture, Security, and Automation at Nokia Standards, Strategy & Technology. He oversees work in areas such as RAN, CORE and System Architecture, Security, Network & Service Automation and AI/ML, driving technology and standardization leadership in 3GPP, O-RAN ALLIANCE, IETF, GSMA, ETSI, NTIA and TSDSI.
Dr. Simone Redana leads initiatives to promote business development across different industry verticals, one example is the 5G trial @ OMRON Kusatsu factory in collaboration with NTT DOCOMO and OMRON.
Previously Dr. Simone Redana led research on concepts and demos of physical layer, protocols and radio architecture, SON for 4G and LTE-WLAN Interworking, new methods spectrum sharing and licensed spectrum access. He was standardization delegate/expert in several 3GPP RAN1, RAN2 and RAN3 meetings, coordinated EU funded projects and launched the Architecture Working Group as parted EU 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP) program.

Chairman of the governing Board６G-IA, NOKIA

Colin Willcock

Colin Willcock is currently chairman of the board of the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA), the vice-chairman of the board of the European Smart Networks and Services Joint undertaking (SNS-JU) and vice-chairman of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) board. He has detailed knowledge and experience of the telecommunications industry having worked directly or indirectly with many of the major players over a 30-year period. The roles have included software developer, technical consultant, technical marketing, standardization and management. In addition to line manager roles, he has participated extensively in standardization activities at ETSI, ITU-T and 3GPP, including instrumental work in creating and developing the TTCN-3 testing language. Colin has also been very active in the European research ecosystem, including leading a number of award winning European projects such as TT-Medal, D-MINT and SEMAFOUR. Colin is currently head of Research Alliances at Nokia.

Master Researcher, Technical lead Hexa-X-II 6G project, 6G-IA Vision and Societal Challenges WG chair, Ericsson

Patrik Rugeland

Dr. Patrik Rugeland is a Master Researcher at Ericsson Research in Stockholm, Sweden. He currently serves as the Technical Manager of Hexa-X-II, the European Union’s flagship 6G research project. He also held the same role in the original Hexa-X project during 2021–2022.
He received his M.Sc. in Engineering Physics in 2009 and Ph.D. in Applied Physics in 2013 from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm. In 2014, he joined Ericsson’s Wireless Access Networks department, where he has been working on advanced concept development and standardization for LTE-Advanced, 5G New Radio (NR), and 6G.
His research focuses on radio network architecture and protocol design, and he is the inventor or co-inventor of over 85 patents in the field of wireless communications.

Chief Technologist-6G, Keysight Technologies

Balaji Raghothaman

Mr. Baraji Ragosaman, as Keysight’s 6G Chief Technologist, leads the company's 6G technology strategy and roadmap development. He drives collaboration and concept demonstrations with industry and academic institutions in areas such as RAN, PHY protocols, Extreme MIMO, AI/ML, and sensing. He also chairs the Test Methodology Task Group as a key representative of the AI-RAN Alliance and actively participates in FCC Technical Advisory Committee, O-RAN, and NextG Alliance. Involved in the conception and operation of KeySite AI Lab in Santa Clara, USA, he previously served as Comscope's Engineering Fellow and contributed to wireless communication R&D at Texas Instruments, Nokia Research, and InterDigital. He holds a PhD in Communication Signal Processing from the University of Texas at Dallas and has published over 65 patents and more than 30 papers.

Project Manager, Telecommunication Labs, Chunghwa Telecom（member of TAICS）

Charles Liu

Dr. Charles Liu received Ph.D. degrees in Communications Engineering from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, in 2000, respectively.
Since 2001, he has been with the Telecommunications Laboratories at Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., where he became a project manager in 2023. From 2023 to 2024, he served as the section chief of the Satellite Network Planning and Design Section at Chunghwa Telcom.
His current research interests include satellite system design, spectrum planning, low-frequency broadcasting systems, digital transceiver design, and speech signal processing.

Senior Director, Technical Standards, Qualcomm

Masato Kitazoe

Masato Kitazoe joined Qualcomm Japan in 2004. He has been responsible for 3GPP standardization for radio upper layer protocols and architecture. After working on the design of WCDMA, LTE and LTE advanced, he now leads Qualcomm’s global standards team for 3GPP RAN Working Group 2 and contributes to 5G and 6G standardization　and collaboration with major industry players.

Charman of XGMF, Professor, The University of Tokyo

Akihiro Nakao

Akihiro Nakao received his B.S. (1991) in Physics, M.E. (1994) in Information Engineering from the University of Tokyo. After working at the IBM Austin Research Laboratory in Texas and the IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory, he earned both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Princeton University. In 2005, he was appointed as Associate Professor, and in February 2014, as Professor in Applied Computer Science, at Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, the University of Tokyo. Since 2020, he has been a special adviser to the President of the University of Tokyo (-present). In April 2021, he has moved to School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo (-present), and since then he has been serving as Director, Collaborative Research Institute for NGCI,（Next-Generation Cyber Infrastructure）, the University of Tokyo (-present). In 2024, he was appointed Co-Chair of XGMF (XG Mobile Promotion Forum) (-present). His research interests lie in information science and information and communication.