Accelerate winners demonstrate AI and services progress

Winners of TM Forum Accelerate awards show how the industry is developing new service opportunities and innovating with AI to deliver intelligent 5G operations and enhance customer experience. The awards ceremony took place at the end of Accelerate (formerly Action Week). In addition to recognizing the achievements of five Catalysts teams to TM Forum collaboration project work, the event celebrated the expertise of thirteen members, who all received Outstanding Contributor awards for their work with TM Forum Collaboration. Members from 256 companies, including 110 communications service providers, attended the virtual Accelerate event, with the next in-person Accelerate planned for 23-26 May 2022 in Lisbon. Participants made progress across key areas of TM Forum’s work. When it comes to autonomous operations, successes included technical alignment of the AN and AIOps Framework and the development of a draft Intent API for autonomous networks and a policy API for data governance. In the area of Beyond Connectivity, participants paved the way for the publication of the upcoming introductory guide to business architecture and advanced their work on zero-touch partnering, connectivity-as-a-service and software marketplaces. There was also considerable progress within Human Factor, notably on addressing the cultural management dimension of the cultural maturity model. In addition, participants worked on an end-to-end process for ODA and achieved consensus on upcoming focus areas across all of ODA. “ODA supports almost everything we do within the TM Forum,” said George Glass, Chief Technology Officer, TM Forum. "It supports our IT transformation in the telco and enables us to introduce AI into our architecture. It helps us whenever we're expanding our aspirations and our horizons and going beyond connectivity and bringing telco services and capabilities into adjacent markets.” The five Catalyst program awards are: The thirteen members recognized for their outstanding contribution to TM Forum Collaboration work and to driving the industry forward are: SriJagadish Baddukonda - CSG

• Industry Contribution to Beyond Connectivity, won by ‘Digital business marketplace Phase 4’
• Industry Contribution to Autonomous Operations​, awarded to ‘AI empowers 5G intelligent operations - Phase II​ Catalyst’
• Industry Contribution to Human Factor​, presented to ‘Standardized value-evaluation model for digital assets’
• Outstanding industry contribution to TM Forum, awarded to 'Leveraging AI/ML to drive CX business outcomes proactively’
• Special recognition - Industry contribution to future standards, won by Operations-as-a-service

SriJagadish has demonstrated an exceptional breadth of knowledge in Zero-Touch Partnering. His leadership and expertise have led to the development and driving force behind several assets, such as the ZTP Vision and Strategy document and the Ecosystem Assurance information guide. In addition, SriJagadish’s collaborative style and commitment have been instrumental in bringing out the best in all team members by providing support and guidance. Joel Burgess - Oracle Corporation

Joel has been a pivotal contributor to TM Forum’s Open Application Programming Interface (API) team. He has provided hundreds of hours of software development for the new V5 Tooling for the API program. His drive to contribute to TM Forum Open APIs has elevated TM Forum’s source control strategy. It is now on par with any large software company globally. In addition, Joel has demonstrated tremendous leadership skills by collaborating and engaging with others. Cliff Faurer - Charter Communications

Cliff co-leads the Business Architecture work at TM Forum. His contributions and leadership have been exceptional in building out the first industry capability map and ensuring its relevance and alignment to TM Forum assets. In doing so, he has saved years of later work to create this alignment manually. Cliff is also a long-standing frequent contributor to many aspects of TM Forum, including the mapping guild. In addition, he is an industry advocate and technical leader of TM Forum’s work. Ryan Jeffery - Passionate about OSS

Ryan’s exemplary contribution to the End-to-end Open Digital Architecture program has led to the creation of TM Forum’s guidebook “Transformation Project Framework,” which provides TM Forum members with a revolutionary framework for transformation projects. Ryan demonstrates tremendous leadership skills, and his ability to listen, collaborate, and engage with others has led the way for others to face industry challenges, organize those challenges, and document them to allow for reusable transformational assets. He is a listener, innovator, and excellent leader. Cece Li - Whale Cloud Technologies Co., Ltd

Cece has been a diligent contributor to the Open Digital Architecture -Component Accelerator project at TM Forum. Her vast knowledge of the industry has led her to drive the internal activities at Whale Cloud, which has helped build TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture components in compliance with the specifications of the ODA Reference Implementation. In addition, Cece continually enhances the field by volunteering to participate in TM Forum Show & Tell sessions and has led Masterclasses at TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World Series. Her support, guidance, and leadership have been exemplary and critical to the project. Dave Mohally - Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd

Dave has been a diligent contributor at TM Forum and led the development of the Ecosystem Modeling Framework, a strategic planning tool to help the industry de-risk strategic decision-making about making investments to go beyond connectivity. His vast industry knowledge has also led him to support the GIO digital health webinar introducing the model to smart inhalers and demonstrating the role of telecommunication service providers in the industry. Dave has been an influencer at TM Forum and is taking the Ecosystem Modeling Framework to the next level by seeking collaboration through the Catalyst program. Sarah Ness - TELUS

Sarah is a regular and valued attendee and contributor to all Data Governance meetings and team leader for the Data Governance Guidebook workstream. Sarah is an experienced project manager and an effective team leader. She encourages participation and contributions from all team members and is willing to go the extra mile to ensure that deliverables are reviewed and completed in time for the publication deadlines. Jörg Niemöller - Ericsson Inc.

Jörg has been the driving force behind developing Intent-based operations within the TM Forum Autonomous Networks project. For the past two years, Jörg has contributed to the development of TM Forum’s informational guide “Intent in Autonomous Networks,” a comprehensive suite consisting of five critical assets for the Autonomous Networks project. In addition, he is an inspirational leader, eloquent speaker, and prolific contributor to written material. Emmanuel A. Otchere - Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd

Emmanuel demonstrates consistent leadership of the Closed Loop Anomaly Detection and Resolution Automation (CLADRA) project. As a pioneer and leader in the CLADRA work, he has helped the team consistently generate assets every eight weeks, allowing the program to grow and help other members at TM Forum. In addition, Emmanuel’s vast depth of knowledge in the industry has shown him to be an influencer across TM Forum in other areas such as Open Digital Architecture, Digital Ecosystem Management, and Digital Maturity Model. Thierry Reynard - Etiya

Thierry led the development of the Connectivity-as-a-Service strategy document, leading to the capture and articulation of the high-level architecture and strategy for delivering Connectivity-as-a-Service. Thierry also led the reference architecture work for Zero Touch Partnering. He continues to be committed to both areas, which are critical to the success of our industry beyond connectivity. Satish Sadagopan - IBM

Since its inception, Satish has been the co-leader of the Closed Loop Anomaly Detection and Resolution Automation (CLADRA) workgroup. Satish works hard in driving the team, helps set the delivery goals, and ensures they are achieved. Satish is a natural leader who is very collaborative, listens, and urges others to collaborate, leading to the delivery of the use cases, reference architecture and other key publications. Mathews Thomas - IBM

Mathews has been the co-leader of the Closed Loop Anomaly Detection and Resolution Automation (CLADRA) workgroup, demonstrating exceptional leadership. Mathews is a tremendous technical visionary and continues to drive the team to produce excellent results, resulting in the technical and operational architectures and working on the API suite. Johan Vandenberghe - Nokia, Bell Labs Consulting

Johan has continuously demonstrated his commitment to the Open Digital Architecture (ODA) Ecosystem Enablement workstream, leveraging his leadership experience in many initiatives involving Open Digital Ecosystem capabilities and Platform business models. His leadership, perseverance, rigor, and countless hours of individual and collaborative work have led to the coordination of the Digital Platform Reference Architecture to align with Open Digital Architecture.