Dr. Dennis Ong Head of 5G Mobility Verizon Smart Communities 5G – Enabling Industrial Mobile Robots, Industrial IoT, and Autonomous Vehicles  

Dr. Dennis Ong is a TEDx speaker, distinguished architect, and head of the 5G Mobility at Verizon Smart Communities. Previously, he served as chief architect and director at Nokia where he led the systems engineering team for the IoT IMPACT platform, which received the "Best IoT Innovation for Mobile Networks" award at Mobile World Congress. At Alcatel-Lucent, he and his solution architecture team collaborated with three start-ups, based in India, Israel, and Silicon Valley, in creating a highly scalable analytics video optimization platform that served 50 million mobile subscribers worldwide.  

Dr. Ong was a TEDx speaker at The Ohio State University (OSU) on "Transforming IoT with Machine Learning" in February of 2018 and at Dayton on "Securing the World with Blockchain" in October of 2019. Dennis regularly speaks at conferences worldwide on machine learning, 5G, smart city, autonomous vehicle, IoT, and blockchain.  

He received an MBA with honors from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from OSU as a University Fellow. Dennis was also an adjunct faculty at OSU. 

Dr. John Thomas Executive Director - Engineering Systems Lab MIT A Systems Approach to Safety  

Dr. John Thomas is the Executive Director of MIT’s Engineering Systems Lab. His research studies engineering mistakes, design flaws, and human error to develop more effective methods to anticipate and address them—especially in safety-critical and security-critical applications. He teaches classes on system safety, cybersecurity, system engineering, software and digital hardware engineering, human factors, and system architecture.  

His work has been widely adopted in industry, including techniques for developing requirements, anticipating unexpected or dysfunctional interactions in engineered systems, analyzing software-intensive systems, human-centered design processes, and others. He works closely with industry to ensure his research is not only theoretically sound but practical, usable, and useful for real engineers solving real problems. Applications include autonomous vehicles (land, air, and space), oil & gas, nuclear power, medical devices, and others.  

Steve Mustard President & CEO National Automation, Inc. Incoming ISA President 2021 What Do You Need To Know—To Know Industrial Cybersecurity  

Steve Mustard, is an independent automation consultant and subject matter expert for the International Society of Automation (ISA) and its umbrella association, the Automation Federation. He is also an ISA executive board member and author of the ISA book, Mission Critical Operations Primer.

Backed by nearly 30 years of software development experience, Mustard specializes in: the development and management of real-time embedded equipment and automation systems; and the integration of real-time processing, decision-support, and other disparate systems to improve business processes. He serves as president of National Automation, Inc. 

Mustard is a recognized authority on industrial cybersecurity, having developed and delivered cybersecurity management systems, procedures, training, and guidance to multiple critical infrastructure organizations. He serves as the chair of the Automation Federation's Cybersecurity Committee. 

Mustard is a licensed professional Engineer, UK registered chartered Engineer, a European registered Eur Ing an ISA Certified Automation Professional® (CAP®), and a certified Global Industrial Cybersecurity Professional (GICSP). He also is a Fellow in the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Senior member of ISA.