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 About Ibrahim One of the global telecommunications industry’s most colorful and respected executives, Ibrahim Gedeon has carved out an international career by combining equally large measures of skill in applied science, penetrating insight into a complex industry, and outright irreverence in sharing his thoughts and opinions. As Chief Technology Officer for TELUS, a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, his energy and engaging manner as a speaker and presenter are legendary within industry circles. Also renowned as a master chef and gregarious host, his Magnum Opus in the publishing world took the form of a cookbook entitled From the Heart, released in 2005. Ibrahim 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 a global customer base. He was named vice president and director of Data Network Engineering at Nortel in 1996; vice president of Internet Brand Management in 1999, and senior vice president of Wireless Engineering in 2000, where he led the global engineering team responsible for operations, sales support, and systems engineering. Sadly for both the author and his Nortel colleagues, he was also witness to the early stages of the tragic unraveling of Canada’s global technology icon. Ibrahim has held numerous leadership roles in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has also received numerous professional awards and various forms of industry recognition, including being named twice to the Global Telecoms Business magazine’s “GTB Power 100,” a list of the 100 most powerful and influential people in the telecoms industry. He joined Vancouver, BC based TELUS in 2003. In his role as CTO he is responsible for technology strategy, service and network architecture, service delivery and operational support systems for the company’s wire line and wireless divisions, as well as service and network convergence, enterprise applications and network infrastructure strategies and evolution. Ibrahim is currently the General Chair for the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications in Ottawa and also serves on the board of a number of industry associations, including the Washington, DC based Alliance for Telecommunications Industry. A native of Lebanon, he has a bachelor's in electrical engineering from the American University of Beirut and a Masters' in Electronics Engineering from Carleton University. He received a Honourary Doctor of Laws degree in 2010 from the University of British Columbia. He currently resides in Edmonton, Alberta. |