Francine Berman, Arogyaswami Paulraj, and Dennis Roberson Join Distinguished Board

Contact: Taia Pandolfi, Marketing & Communications Manager, the Marconi Society taia@marconisociety.org

October 15, 2021—The Marconi Society, a nonprofit dedicated to digital inclusion, today announced three new Board members and a major gift from Marconi Fellow and Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs and his wife Joan Jacobs. The new Board members, Francine Berman (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Arogyaswami Paulraj (Stanford University), and Dennis Roberson (Roberson and Associates and Illinois Institute of Technology), bring decades of experience in technology and policy to the Marconi Society’s Board.

“With this generous gift from Irwin and Joan Jacobs and the deep expertise of our new Board members, the Marconi Society will be able to continue accelerating our work and our impact,” said Vint Cerf, Chair of the Marconi Society and 1998 Marconi Fellow. “We believe that connectivity is a basic human right and we aspire to the day when we have true digital inclusion.”

The Marconi Society was founded in 1974 by Gioia Braga Marconi to celebrate the legacy of innovation in communications technology left by her father, Guglielmo Marconi. In 2019, the organization revised its mission to focus on bringing the life-changing opportunities of connectivity to everyone in the world. Through programming like The Decade of Digital Inclusion, a virtual event series with a Symposium scheduled for October 22, the Marconi Society collaborates with changemakers from technology, policy, and digital inclusion in order to address the complex causes of digital inequity. 

“We are grateful to welcome our new Board members and for this significant contribution from Irwin and Joan Jacobs,” said Samantha Schartman-Cycyk, Executive Director of the Marconi Society. “We believe an interdisciplinary approach is essential in the fight to address digital equity. As we continue to expand our community of leaders, we are invigorated by these important additions to our network and resources.”

Investing in Digital Inclusion

Irwin and Joan Jacobs, who are recognized globally for their philanthropic work, recently gave $500,000 to support the Marconi Society’s work to end the digital divide. 

“Joan and I are deeply committed to improving access to quality education,” says Jacobs. “In order to ensure the next generation is able to participate in the incredible opportunities offered by connected technology, we need to ensure they have access to tools, devices, education, and connectivity. The Marconi Society’s mission of digital inclusion is essential to our vision of a globally connected, educated society.”

Irwin Jacobs received the Marconi Prize in 2011 for his contributions to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) through his founding of two important companies—Linkabit and Qualcomm—and co-authorship of a seminal textbook on communications engineering.

The Jacobses have signed the Giving Pledge, an “international movement of philanthropists who commit to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes.” With their gift to the Marconi Society, they support programming like the Celestini Program (a mentorship program for underrepresented STEM students), broadband mapping efforts to provide accurate data on consumer connectivity, and the discussion of the decade, a first-ever survey of ICT and digital inclusion fields.

New Board Members

Chaired by Cerf, the Marconi Society’s Board oversees the organization’s mission and programming, working in close partnership with Schartman-Cycyk. Berman, Roberson, and Paulraj join a distinguished group of socially engaged technologists including John Cioffi (Stanford University), Zvi Galil (Georgia Institute of Technology), and others.

The new members bring valuable expertise and relationships within policy and digital inclusion to the Marconi Society. Berman, a professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts, was appointed by President Obama to serve on the National Council on the Humanities in recognition of her leadership within data science and her perspectives on the socio-environmental impact of connected technologies. Paulraj, 2014 Marconi Fellow, is professor emeritus at Stanford University and is widely revered for his groundbreaking research in MIMO technology and its applications. Roberson, CEO of Roberson and Associates, is a nationally recognized expert in technology and also serves as Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Technological Advisory Committee. 

“I’m delighted to join the Board of the Marconi Society,” says Berman. “Their mission to connect people via technology and promote digital inclusion is a strong complement to my own work as a Public Interest Technologist to promote the benefits and reduce the risks of digital technologies. I look forward to this opportunity to contribute.”

“I am very honored to join the Marconi Society Board,” says Paulraj. “It has been a privilege to be a part of the Marconi family as a Fellow since 2014, with so many distinguished colleagues and promising Young Scholars. The organization has launched new initiatives from digital inclusion to big ideas. It will be a pleasure to advance these important efforts.”

“I am greatly honored to have the opportunity to serve on the Board of the Marconi Society,” says Roberson. “This is an amazing organization composed of many of the most illustrious names in the modern communications world. Given the wisdom and experience of those affiliated with the organization, it has enormous potential to serve the world in narrowing the broadband digital divide. This in turn should improve the well-being of people around the world in incredible ways that in many cases are only dreams today.”

About the Marconi Society

The Marconi Society envisions a world in which everyone can create opportunity through the benefits of connectivity. The organization celebrates, inspires, and connects individuals building tomorrow’s technologies in service of a digitally inclusive world.

Board Member Biographies

Francine Berman

Dr. Francine Berman is the Director of Public Interest Technology and the Stuart Rice Research Professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst. She is a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and was selected as the 2019-2020 Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. 

Berman is a data scientist whose current work focuses on the social and environmental impacts of information technology, and in particular of the Internet of Things (IoT). Berman explores the overarching ecosystem needed to guide the development of information technologies that maximize benefits, minimize risks, and promote individual protections, the public interest, and planetary responsibility. Recent work has focused on data stewardship and preservation, particularly with respect to the policy, practice, and infrastructure needed to ensure the integrity, longevity, and usefulness of the data on which modern research relies. Berman’s interests are in the broad area of Public Interest Technology, and focus on strategies that promote technology as a tool to advance humanity.

Berman is a founder of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), a community-driven international organization whose mission is to build global infrastructure that enables data sharing and data-driven research.

Arogyaswami Paulraj

Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Arogyaswami J. Paulraj works in wireless technology. He served at Stanford from 1993 to 2010 where he supervised 50 doctoral and postdoctoral students. His group published over 400 research papers and are co-inventors on 80 U.S. patents. Paulraj is the pioneer of MIMO wireless communications, a technology now incorporated in all broadband wireless systems including 4G, 5G, and WiFi. His leadership in ICT won him the 2014 Marconi Prize.

In 1999, Paulraj founded Iospan Wireless Inc. where he developed MIMO-OFDMA based cellular networks. In 2004, he co-founded Beceem Communications Inc. The company became the market leader in 4G-WiMAX semiconductors. In 2014, he founded Rasa Networks to develop AI tools for managing large WiFi Networks. The three companies were acquired by Intel, Broadcom and HPE respectively.

During his 25 years in India (Indian Navy), prior to Stanford, he founded three national laboratories for the Indian Government (Center for AI and Robotics, Center for Advanced Computing, and Central Research Labs) and headed the development of a cutting-edge surface ship ASW sonar (APSOH).

Dennis Roberson

Roberson is President and CEO of Roberson and Associates, a wireless technology–focused consulting company, Chairman of Board of entigenlogic, an Artificial Intelligence based Natural Language Understanding product company, and the Caerus Institute, a patent development and support organization. He is also a Research Professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he was co-founder of IIT’s Wireless Network and Communications Research Center and co-founder of the Intellectual Property Management and Markets program. He currently serves on the Marconi Society’s Paul Baran Young Scholar Award Selection Advisory Committee.

His research focus has been on heterogeneous dynamic spectrum access networks; spectrum observation, measurement, and management; and wireless interference detection and mitigation. Previously he was Vice Provost for Research at Illinois Institute of Technology and before that Motorola’s EVP/CTO. He had an extensive corporate career including business and technology responsibilities at IBM, DEC (now part of HP), AT&T, and NCR. He has been and currently is involved with numerous technical, educational, and youth organizations including current board service on several technology-based companies. 

He has served as Chair of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council for the past eight years and has served on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee (CSMAC) for the past 10 years. Roberson has BSEE and BS Physics degrees from Washington State University and an MSEE from Stanford.