ACADEMIA

Keynote Presents Third Network as Stimulus For Businesses to Leverage Global Success of Carrier Ethernet

Over the course of the next three days MEF GEN14 (GEN14.com) will host the largest gathering of Carrier Ethernet, SDN, NFV, optical, and cloud service expert speakers ever assembled in North America. On the first day, Bob Metcalfe, Ethernet Inventor and University of Texas Professor of Innovation, will be delivering a compelling keynote on the future of innovation along with Nan Chen, President of the MEF and Mark Halbfinger, CEO, PCCW Global.

Earlier this year, Bob Metcalfe and Nan Chen launched the Third Network vision that delivers Internet-like agility and ubiquity with CE 2.0 performance and security. GEN14 will demonstrate how the industry is embracing this vision and network paradigm, and will launch with a strong message about adopting a new vital spirit of cooperation between academia, government and business. The big question will be - If the Internet was able to revive even a spark of the enlightenment spirit that launched the industrial and technological revolutions, what greater stimulus might the Third Network present?

The live Proof of Concept (PoC) showcase will be the focal point of the GEN14 event and will give a glimpse into how the Third Network in action can empower innovation and create endless business opportunities for service providers. The showcase features leading-edge implementations of dynamic cloud-centric services with SDN, NFV, automated provisioning, service orchestration, and other innovations.

Showcase participants include: Allstream, Tata Communications, Amartus, Transition Networks, CenturyLink, Ciena, Cyan, Oracle, InfoVista: WebNMS, Omnitron Systems, VeEX.

GEN14 represents an extraordinary opportunity to engage with nearly 115 world-class expert speakers and hundreds of other attending professionals who are shaping the future of global networking.  Registrants from more than 325 organizations from 36+ countries plan to attend the event.

GEN14's 110 sponsors and event partners include: Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Cox Business, Lumos Networks, PCCW Global, Tata Communications, XO, Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper Networks, Ciena, Fujitsu Network Communications, Oracle, and many more.

Driving innovation is the key theme of GEN14 on every level and another highlight of GEN14 to be unveiled by Bob Metcalfe will be the launch of a competition to identify the next generation of cloud computing leaders. The competition will spotlight the best innovators looking for their first A round financing to develop their ideas, as well as the players who need their B/C funding to drive products, solutions and go-to-market releases.

"GEN14 will fuel innovation, challenge thinking and nurture new up and coming ideas. The 1,000 plus MEF GEN14 attendees have the opportunity to witness first hand, collaborating implementations of what is possible in the world of service delivery to business users. With an exciting line up of expert speakers, GEN14 will inspire the industry to build on the great work of CE 2.0 and accelerate the uptake of the Third Network vision," says Nan Chen, President of the MEF.