Redback Networks Inc., designs, develops, and markets networking solutions for IP based services and communications. Redback’s hardware, software, and services are designed to create solutions that address the operational and technical challenges of building a next generation network that delivers consumer and business services. Redback’s solutions enable carriers and service providers to rapidly and efficiently deploy broadband internet access, IP video, and online gaming with the SmartEdge® product portfolio. Redback Networks was founded in 1996 and was acquired by Ericsson in January 2007.

Redback serves over 500 service provider customers in the world, including 15 of the top 20 broadband service providers. Key customers include incumbent carriers such as BellSouth, AT&T, Verizon, British Telecom, France Telecom, KPN, Belgacom, Turk Telekom, TeliaSonera, Bezeq, Korea Telecom, Chunghwa Telecom, China Telecom and China Netcom. Additionally many CLECs, IXCs, and ISPs belong to Redback’s global customer base including Sprint, Arcor, Covad, eAccess, Hanaro Telecom, Golden Belt Telephone Association, MegaPath, Neuf Telecom, Scarlet Telecom, Tele2 and True Corporation.

One of our main advocates inside Redback is someone who was a speaker at one of the earliest TechWadi events:

George Antoun - Sr. Vice President of World Wide Field Operations

Georges Antoun is the senior vice president of world wide field operations, product management and marketing at Redback and is responsible for all field and customer-facing activities, including worldwide sales, system engineering, and sales operations. Before joining Redback, Georges spent five years at Cisco Systems where he served as vice president of worldwide systems engineering and field marketing, vice president of worldwide optical operations, and more recently as vice president of carrier sales. Georges was instrumental in the successful strategy behind Cisco’s entry into the service provider and optical markets. He acted as the main liaison between the customer, sales and engineering to prioritize products and features. He has also held senior management positions at Newbridge Networks and Nynex (now Verizon Communications), where he was part of their Science and Technology Division.

Georges Antoun holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and a Masters degree in Information Systems Engineering from New York Polytechnic University.

Without further adu, please join us in extending a very warm welcome to: Telus and AdvancedIO.

Telus

TELUS is a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, with $9.0 billion of annual revenue and 11.0 million customer connections including 5.4 million wireless subscribers, 4.4 million wireline network access lines and 1.2 million Internet subscribers. TELUS provides a wide range of communications products and services including data, Internet protocol (IP), voice, entertainment and video. Committed to being Canada’s premier corporate citizen, we give where we live. Since 2000, TELUS and our team members have contributed more than $91 million to charitable and non-profit organizations, and volunteered more than 1.7 million hours of service to local communities. Eight TELUS Community Boards across Canada lead our local philanthropic initiatives. For more information about TELUS, please visit telus.com.

 Our main advocate at Telus is Ibrahim Gedeon, Chief Technology Officer, TELUS

Ibrahim Gedeon, as the Chief Technology Officer, is responsible for technology strategy, network and services architecture and network support systems for TELUS Communications Inc. In his role as CTO he is responsible for the Wireless-Wireline service and network convergence, enterprise applications and network infrastructure strategies and evolution.
Mr. Gedeon began his career in telecommunications engineering and research in 1990 when he joined Bell Northern Research designing signal-processing software in the cryptographic systems division. He moved to Nortel Networks in 1994 as a network design engineer, where he provided technical network design expertise to Nortel Networks’ customer base globally. He was named vice president and director of Data Network Engineering at Nortel in 1996, and vice president of Internet Brand Management in 1999, where he was responsible for IP/MPLS/ATM standards, engineering, and market development. He was appointed senior vice president of Wireless Engineering in 2000 and led the global engineering team responsible for operations, sales support, and systems engineering.
Mr. Gedeon has held numerous leadership roles in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has received several professional awards, including IEEE Canada’s Outstanding Canadian Engineer Award. Ibrahim has a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the American University of Beirut and a Masters’ in Electronics Engineering from Carleton University. 

AdvancedIO 

AdvancedIO Systems is a market leader in real-time connectivity and packet processing solutions for telecommunications, aerospace, signal intelligence, radar/sonar, and other embedded high-speed data environments.
Businesses in a variety of industries use AdvancedIO modules to fully leverage the promise of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) technology for embedded applications. The products accelerate protocol processing by offloading CPUs, and also add critical flow-through processing to I/O data streams.
AdvancedIO’s 10GbE products are ideal for demanding applications because they offer outstanding performance in conjunction with application flexibility. Using reprogrammable FPGAs and specialized algorithms, AdvancedIO can:

•  Add signal processing such as filtering, up/down conversion, and synchronization
•  Include packet processing such as packet classification and inspection
•  Customize protocols with tunable delays, timestamps, and test patterns

Applying a unique blend of technology to critical connectivity problems, AdvancedIO helps customers achieve new levels of performance and efficiency with a shorter time to market. Our standards-based products solve the challenges of fast data transfers in the embedded world, where multiple specialized protocols, such as RapidIO, Infiniband, and PCI Express are ultimately interfaced with Ethernet.
AdvancedIO also offers consultation services for system and FPGA application development.

Our main advocate at AdvancedIO is none other than Mohammad Darwish, President & CEO, AdvancedIO

 Mr. Darwish brings his creativity and vision to set the tone and direction for AdvancedIO Systems. He has over 17 years of technical and business experience in embedded systems. Prior to launching AdvancedIO, he spent seven years with Spectrum Signal Processing as a senior member of the R&D team, where he was responsible for several embedded products and held a major position in software radio system development. He also chaired the PICMG 2.18 standard committee and wrote the original specifications. Mr. Darwish received a MASc Degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and taught at the university from 1994 to 2002. He holds one patent and has been published in a number of industry journals. Mr. Darwish also serves on the AdvancedIO Board of Directors.

 As you can see, both Telus and AdvancedIO are perfect examples of inter-community cooperation - Arab executives helping and benefiting from the larger Arab technology community.

 The next event of the Entrepreneurship forum will take place on Tuesday October 9, at WilmerHale Venture Group, (1100 Winter St., Waltham, MA 02451- Directions here ).

This event is entitled:

“Secrets of growth strategies; how to make it to top 500 fastest growing “
A networking session and dinner will start at 6:30pm, followed by a presentation from our keynote speaker,  Ned Taleb, Co-Founder and CEO of Nexius, Inc. a wireless startup based in VA.

Nexius, Inc. was recently rated the 103rd fastest growing business in America by Entrepreneur Magazine’s 13th Annual “Hot 500” list, appearing in the August 2007 issue of the publication. Based on the rankings, Nexius is 16th among technology companies in the U.S.  ( In partnership with the Corporate Research Board, Entrepreneur’s “Hot 500” is chosen from a database of more than 19 million U.S. businesses.)

The Arab American Association of Engineers and Architects (AAAEA) is a non-profit, non-political, non-religious professional organization. It is open to all architects, engineers and computer science professionals and students of Arab heritage residing in the USA.

AAAEA is dedicated to helping its members succeed and advance in their professions by networking and interacting among each others through technical, educational, and social activities and events.

Through networking and interaction with other professional and business organizations, the AAAEA helps and encourages establishing sister organizations in other states.

 Website: aaaea.org

With close to 400 members (mostly in the Midwest) and over 1000 affilliated members throughout the US, the AAAEA is the one of the fastest growing Arab American professional groups. It has approxiamtely 25% of its membership from the computer and IT sectors. The majority of the association’s membership is in the civil engineering industry.

Its largest groups are in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana and Florida. New in 2007 is the Southern California chapter.

You can learn more about  the AAAEA at: www.aaaea.org.

We recently came across the Arab Computing Society  website. The association’s mission “is to advance the theory and practice of information science and technology … The ACS shall enhance the participation and contribution of the Arab world in Information Technologies and to maximize its benefits. The scope of ACS shall include all aspects of the theory and practice of computer science and information technology”.

Several technology conferences going on in Arab countries are listed on their site. The association is located in Lebanon and they list the following email: info@arabcomputersociety.org

Be sure to check them out.