Jean-Noel Tronc Chief Executive Officer, Orange France, and Line of Business Personal France Telecom Group

Giovanni Colombo Head of Long-Term Research Telecom Italia

Mr. Colombo is responsible for Telecom Italia's Long Term Research. He is also a member of ISTAG, the IST Advisory Group, acting in support of the European Commission to orientate the R&D initiatives and funding. In past years he has served as the R&D chief technology officer, responsible for the Telecom Italia's R&D department. He also served as the head of R&D Mobile Direction for Telecom Italia Labs. In these roles, he has managed a wide spectrum of activities in the ICT field.

Jean-Claude Dassier General Manager LCI

Mr. Dassier has been in his current position since February 1999. Prior to that, he was the general manager of the antenna of LCI and director of the operations of TF1. From 1987 to 1993, he was the director of the operations of TF1 and vice president of Eurosport. From 1968 to 1983, Mr. Dassier was a journalist in Europe 1 and deputy manager of the Topicality. He began his career as a journalist at France Inter, where he was employed from 1964 to 1968.

Bertrand Maheut President and General Director Canal +

Peter Newcombe President, Carrier Packet Networks, EMEA Nortel

Mr. Newcombe joined STC Telecommunications in 1983 as a hardware engineer, working on public switching products. In 1991, when Nortel acquired STC, he moved to the transmission division, supporting Nortel international business. Mr. Newcombe was instrumental in the early days of SDH in the industry, and his broad transmission knowledge led to a number of roles in product marketing and business development in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Ari Virtanen Vice President, Convergence Products, Multimedia Nokia

Mr. Virtanen heads the group that makes non-cellular connected products for consumers' home and mobile use, including the current leading product, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. Prior to joining his current department, he was in charge of networks' system technology unit, with the global responsibility of network-related end-to-end system functionalities, architectures, R&D, and technology strategies, as well as regulatory and standardization activities. Before that he was in charge of Nokia's mobile packet core and service control systems businesses as well as the intelligent content delivery program.