Intro

ATHUL PRASAD is an experienced senior researcher, innovator, inventor & technologist, with a passion for sustainable change using the power of disruptive innovations. He has worked with various companies such as Nokia, Huawei, and NEC, in fundamental and applied scientific research, business and product management, technology consulting, and product development roles for over 12 years, delivering high quality research, products & standards, catering to global customers. As a global leader, he has lived and worked in USA, Finland, Germany, and India, and has spent extensive amounts of time traveling to over 30 countries, successfully executing various projects and business assignments.

During his high-impact career, he has successfully led projects and deployed products in over 70 countries across the globe in close collaboration with the customers. As part of Nokia's end-to-end 5G leadership program, he has also contributed towards long-term technology and product portfolio strategy, and has been a key enabler for leading the technology transfer from the research organizations to products.

He is proficient in end-to-end lifecycle management of products from early-stage data-driven ideation and experimentation, to late-stage maintenance of highly successful products. He has built highly complex digital twin platforms using robust statistical / machine learning models for estimating the potential viability of early stage innovations, before making multi-billion € product investment decisions.

As a firm believer in the immense potential of intellectual property as a key driver for deriving competitive advantage and reducing R&D costs, he has co-invented of 70+ international patent families (100+ individual filings, both issued and pending) related to 4G and 5G, which has led to sustainable product innovations and licensing revenues of over 1.5 B€.

Dr. Prasad is a skilled technology negotiator and has led various industry engagement activities for Nokia and NEC, with 1 B€+ revenue impact. He has also managed multi-million € projects while ensuring high-impact results within the budget constraints. He has worked extensively with technology startups, helping them bring their innovations to the market. As a passionate technologist and highly recognized thought leader, he has co-authored 50+ international publications, book / book chapter, and technical reports, in collaboration with 70+ researchers from 30+ countries / 5 continents across the globe. Together with a highly diverse group of industry experts with over a century of combined industry experience, he recently published the book related to 5G, titled: "End-to-End Mobile Communications: Evolution to 5G" (McGraw-Hill, Aug. 2020).

He received his Bachelor of Technology, B.Tech, degree (with distinction) from the University of Kerala - Sree Chitra Thirunal College of Engineering in 2006, majoring on Electronics and Communications Engineering. He received his Master of Science in Technology, M.Sc. (Tech.), degree (with distinction) and Doctor of Science in Technology, D.Sc. (Tech), both in Communication Engineering from Aalto University, Finland, in 2011 and 2015, respectively. He received his Master of Business Administration, MBA degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Sloan Fellow. He is also a graduate of the year-long executive management education (LEAD) program from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

From 2006 to 2009 he was with Huawei Technologies' R&D center in India, and from 2010 to 2012 he worked for Aalto University and as a consultant with Nokia Research Center. From 2012 until 2014 he was with NEC Europe Ltd. as a 3GPP standardization engineer and delegate. Since 2014 he was working with Nokia in Espoo, Finland, most recently as the Head of 5G Business Modeling & Analysis in Nokia's E2E 5G Leadership program. He was previously a Senior Specialist, Radio Research in the Access Research Lab which is part of Nokia Bell Labs. His research interests include a wide variety of technology topics that cover the end-to-end mobile communication systems, and investigating techno-economic drivers of innovation and organizational growth with the use of advanced data analytics.

He has won the best paper award at the 2013 77th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, the best 5G paper award at IEEE BMSB 2018, and the best paper runner-up award at IEEE 5G-WF 2018. He has served in the organizing / technical programs committee of several international conferences (IEEE CSCN, WCNC, 5G World Forum, VTC, Globecom, PIMRC, ICCVE). He has also been involved as a public speaker and technology evangelist, giving keynotes and invited lectures at various international forums, conferences and technology summits.