Dr. Marc A. Zissman of MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Biography:

Dr. Marc A. Zissman is Associate Head of the Cyber Security and Information Sciences Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. In this role, he shares responsibility for strategic direction and technical oversight of 300 staff in six technical groups performing system analysis, architecture engineering, technology development, prototyping, deployment, and quantitative assessment of cyber-related components and systems for Department of Defense and other national security sponsors.

Dr. Zissman joined the Laboratory in 1983, and his early research focused on digital speech processing, including parallel computing for speech coding and recognition, co-channel talker interference suppression, language and dialect identification, and cochlear-implant processing for the profoundly deaf. After working for one year in the Department of Defense under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act program, he expanded his research interests to include cyber security technology. He served in a series of Laboratory leadership roles, including Associate Leader of the Human Language Technology Group, Leader of the Wideband Tactical Networking Group, and Assistant Head of the Communication Systems and Cyber Security Division. He had responsibility for developing and executing a strategic plan for growing the Laboratory's cyber security research, development, evaluation, and technology transfer efforts.

In addition to working at Lincoln Laboratory, Dr. Zissman served for four years as a U.S. technical specialist to the NATO IST-011/TG-001 task group, which studies military applications of speech technology for NATO. He was elected to and served for four years on the Speech Processing Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He also served for four years on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Science and Technology Study Group. He worked for six months as part of the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) and Joint Task Force-HAITI team that responded to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and he worked on-site in Port-au-Prince for two months during that time. Since 2011, he has been serving as a member of the Army Science Board, for which he has led studies for senior Army leadership on the future of telemetry and the battlefield uses of artificial intelligence. He is a board member of the non-profit Boston-based Advanced Cyber Security Center, and he serves as a member of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s state Task Force on Artificial Intelligence. Since March 2020, he has been part of the MIT / MA General Hospital team leading PACT (Private Automated Contact Tracing), a project that is enhancing contact tracing in pandemic response by designing exposure detection functions in personal digital communication devices to have maximal public health effectiveness while preserving privacy.

Dr. Zissman holds an SB degree in computer science and SB, SM, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering, all from MIT.

Konstantinos Karachalios of IEEE Standards Association

IEEE is a very reputable organization because, since over a century, many of its members have been at the forefront of very significant techno-scientific advances. By contrast, the tagline “advancing technology for humanity” is just 10 years old. The extension "for humanity" is far from trivial, if one admits that the development of technology, and partly also of science, is embedded in broader socio-economic processes. Under realistic circumstances, assuming that these processes would a priori benefit the entire humanity, or at least broader parts thereof, may prove wishful thinking. Logically, science and technology will serve the interests of the ones who determine and control the initial and boundary conditions of the socio-economic processes that drive forward the techno-scientific evolution, such as geopolitical considerations and market competition as well as financial and reputational incentives within the techno-scientific communities. This is probably the reason why as the speed of technological evolution follows a breathtaking exponential trajectory, the technology-caused extinction-level threats to humanity keep increasing, not decreasing.

The speech address the question whether and how IEEE, through its leadership and membership, recognize these challenges and - if yes - what are the programs and plans aiming at reducing the gap between aspirational declarations and reality, starting with the specific case of AI systems.

Biography:

A globally recognized leader in standards development and intellectual property, Dr. Ing. Konstantinos Karachalios is managing director of the IEEE Standards Association and a member of the IEEE Management Council.

As managing director, he has been enhancing IEEE efforts in global standards development in strategic emerging technology fields, through technical excellence of staff, expansion of global presence and activities and emphasis on inclusiveness and good governance.

As member of the IEEE Management Council, he championed expansion of IEEE influence in key techno-political areas, including consideration of social and ethical implications of technology, according to the IEEE mission to advance technology for humanity. Results have been rapid in coming and profound; IEEE is becoming the place to go for debating and building consensus on issues such as a trustworthy and inclusive Internet and ethics in design of autonomous systems.

Before IEEE, Konstantinos played a crucial role in successful French-German cooperation in coordinated research and scenario simulation for large-scale nuclear reactor accidents. And with the European Patent Office, his experience included establishing EPO’s patent academy, the department for delivering technical assistance for developing countries and the public policy department, serving as an envoy to multiple U.N. organizations.

Konstantinos earned a Ph.D. in energy engineering (nuclear reactor safety) and masters in mechanical engineering from the University of Stuttgart.