UB to host second annual wireless communication workshop

Fortune 500 companies. The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Senior defense officials. Academics from across the globe, and community development leaders from upstate New York.

All will take part in a virtual UB workshop on Friday to discuss the future of wireless communication.

The diversity of fields the attendees represent, from corporate America and higher education to the military and local government, highlights the important and wide-ranging role that wireless communication plays in society.

“5G and the Internet of Things, also known as IoT, are or will be embedded in our daily lives. And as these technologies mature, they’ll be even more important,” says Filippo Malandra, assistant professor of research in the Department of Electrical Engineering and one of the workshop’s organizers.

“This is a unique forum for researchers, students and practitioners to exchange innovative ideas and new research results that could have profound impacts on the world.”

The workshop is called the “2nd Buffalo Day for 5G and Wireless Internet of Things.” It includes a discussion with Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC since 2012.

A Buffalo native who grew up in Kansas, Pai is at the center of key issues, including net neutrality and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity for website publishers of third-party content.

The workshop’s keynote speech will be delivered by Jeremy Prince, president of Sigfox USA, a global Internet of Things provider that has a network in Buffalo that UB engineers helped set up.

Additionally, representatives from GE Aviation, Qualcomm, Verizon, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, the University of Bologna in Italy, Polytechnique Montreal in Canada, the cities of Buffalo and Syracuse, and other organizations are participating in the event.

The workshop is supported by the New York State Wireless Association (NYSWA), whose representatives invited several speakers and will help moderate several sessions.

The event will provide UB students who are taking an advanced level IoT course an opportunity to discuss their work in a poster session, demos and IoT exhibit.

“Our students are working with state-of-the-art communication, networking and data collection technologies. This session will allow them to show their knowledge and creativity to key stakeholders in the IoT realm,” says Zhangyu Guan, assistant professor of electrical engineering who is teaching the class and serving on the workshop’s organizing committee.

In addition to Malandra and Guan, other conference organizers are Nicholas Mastronarde, Zhi Sun and Shaofeng Zou, all faculty members in the Department of Electrical Engineering, which is part of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Josep M. Jornet, a former UB faculty member who now teaches at Northeastern University, is also a workshop organizer.

The workshop is open to the public. Register online.