Vinton Cerf, widely recognized as one of the “Fathers of the Internet” for his work on the design of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet, has served as Vice President and Chief Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005. He was chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007. He is currently also President of the Association for Computing Machinery. Mr. Cerf is also the former Senior Vice President of Technology Strategy and Architecture and Technology for MCI. While working with MCI, Mr. Cerf led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet. He currently serves on several boards and has received numerous awards for his continuously pioneering work including the U.S. National Medal of Technology, the ACM Alan M. Turing award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Japan Prize and the Queen Elizabeth II Prize for Engineering. He was recently promoted to Officer of the French Legion d’Honneur.

Cerf holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Stanford University and Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UCLA and holds 21 honorary degrees from universities around the world.

She holds a BA in media from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), an MA in Telecommunications Science, Management and Policy from Northwestern University (USA), and an MBA from the University of Auckland (NZ).

Karen has been active across Internet technology, policy, and development for nearly 20 years, including prior roles in Internet start-ups, government, and management consulting. She began her career in public policy working on Internet and e-commerce issues at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. She later joined the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce where her work focused on the coordination of Internet naming and addressing functions, including the domain name system, ENUM, and IPv6.  She received the Department’s Gold Medal award and several additional honours for her work to privatize and introduce global competition in domain name system services.

In 2002, she left government to join an Internet start-up in Sydney, Australia where her responsibilities included corporate strategy and product development. Just prior to joining ISOC, Karen was an independent ICT consultant based in Cairo, Egypt and Sydney, Australia.

Prior to taking up her current role within ISOC, she was responsible for leading the organization’s efforts to expand Internet infrastructure, access, and related capacities around the world.  Among her accomplishments, she spearheaded the Internet Society’s highly successful work to improve Internet interconnection and traffic exchange in emerging and developing economies, which has fostered Internet exchange point development and increased peering in numerous countries around the world.

She holds an MBA from the University of Auckland, a MA in Telecommunications Science, Management and Policy from Northwestern University, and a BA in media from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Scott Burleigh has been a software engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, since 1986.

Mr. Burleigh co-authored the specification for the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) File Delivery Protocol (CFDP), an international standard for file transfer over interplanetary distances. Mr. Burleigh developed the first implementation of CFDP, which was adapted for operational use on a number of flight missions, including JPL’s Deep Impact comet exploration mission.

Mr. Burleigh co-authored the DTN Architecture definition (Internet RFC 4838). He is also a co-author of the specification for the DTN Bundle Protocol (BP, Internet RFC 5050). In addition, he is a co-author of the specifications for the Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP, Internet RFCs 5325 through 5327) supporting data block transmission reliability at the data link layer.

Mr. Burleigh leads the development and maintenance of implementations of BP and LTP software, with the long-term goal of enabling deployment of a delay-tolerant Solar System Internet. The ION version of DTN software is now in continuous operation on the International Space Station and is being used for operational studies on-board the EO-1 Earth-orbiting spacecraft.

Mr. Burleigh has received the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal and four NASA Space Act Board Awards for his work on the design and implementation of these communication protocols.

She led the first security initiative for Cisco in the mid-1990s, authored the Cisco Press book “Designing Network Security” and has for over 20 years worked with numerous companies creating strategic operational security and resilient networking architectures. Her contributions to support the deployment and understanding of IPv6 security issues earned her an IPv6 Forum Fellow status in 2004. Merike has contributed to the IETF since 1992, a pioneer member of ISOC, is on ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Council (SSAC) and the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC). She earned a MSEE from George Washington University and a BSEE from Rutgers University.

She has been an active speaker at customer engagements, she was the founding member and lead on Cisco’s early IDM initiatives, and she was the founding Security Domain Architect for IT’s virtual infrastructure architecture team. From 2007 – 2009 lead the security track for the implementation of HRMS and to develop the strategy for security for HR & Finance IT. . In 2010, Michele was promoted to Distinguished Engineer, one of 8 female DEs across Cisco. She recently co-founded the Cisco Women in Cybersecurity Community which has strong focus on expanding awareness about the numerous and exciting opportunities in the field of cybersecurity and she is the Chief Security Architect for the Security domain in IT.

Outside of Cisco, Michele has been an avid participant, speaker, teacher, influencer and evangelist in the cyber security industry for over 26 years. Her most recent work focuses on developing & codifying the practice and art of Information Security Engineering & Architecture. Her motto is all about “Building it in and not bolting it on”. She was recently received a SANS 2014 Difference Makers’ Award for leading the Security Knowledge Empowerment (SKE) program, which makes security part of the DNA of all Cisco operations.

“My passion is to develop and build the next generation of cyber security professionals through innovative, relevant and collaborative training. Tribal knowledge must end and information and expertise must be shared and codified if we, as an industry, are to outpace the well-connected and highly-skilled cyber underground”, she says. “The threat landscape changes daily and cyber security professionals must be willing to partner, constantly learn and stay engaged”.

Michele has B.A., in Mathematics with a minor in Cybernetic Systems, and has also completed a two-year program in Biblical Studies. She is currently working on her Masters in Software Engineering with a concentration in Cybersecurity.

Girard Kelly is an attorney focused on Internet, privacy, cybersecurity, and Intellectual Property law who has a strong background in public policy, information technology, entrepreneurship, and emerging technologies. Currently, Girard is a legislative assistant at the California State Legislature for Assemblymember Ed Chau, Chair of the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, and Select Committee on Emerging Technologies. Girard received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona, Master’s Degree in Applied Ethics of Science and Technology Policy from Arizona State University, and J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law.