George Sharkov

Director, European Software Institute, Center Eastern Europe

Dr. George Sharkov graduated Mathematics and Computer Science at Sofia University, has PhD in Artificial Intelligence, research in applied informatics, biophysics, thermography and genetics (Gent, Belgium), enterprise information systems architectures. After 1994 leading international projects and multi-national teams for financial and banking systems, e-business, online markets (France, USA, Israel, global markets).

Since 2003 he is managing the Eastern European regional excellence center (ESI CEE, www.esicenter.eu) of the European Software Institute (www.esi.es), covering 12 countries in Eastern Europe and Caucasus region. He is a trainer and consultant in SPI (software process improvement), software engineering quality and management, implementation of CMMI model (SEI, Carnegie Mellon), IT Mark appraiser (ESI method for SMEs). George is leading a research network in Cryptography, Cyber Defense and business resilience (www.cryptobg.org), part of the appraiser apprentice program on RMM (Resilience Management Model, CERT at SEI).

Dr. Sharkov is lecturing Software Quality (CMMI) at Sofia University and a new Digitized Ecosystems. He is leading a Program for modernization of Software Engineering Management education (SEMP) in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and 6 Bulgarian universities. Steering Committee member of the EC CEN Workshop in ICT-skills and expert on e-competences.

George is among the founders and the first Chairman of BASSCOM (Bulgarian Association of Software Companies, PIN-SME founder), initiator and promoter of the regional ICT brand initiative (SEE-IT), a founder and board member of the Bulgarian ICT Cluster. He is Program Committee member of 5 international conferences, jury member of national and international ICT contests, Grand Jury and Board member of the WSA contest under UN WSIS.

Slava Muchnick

Principal Consultant, Application Security, EE Ltd

Slava has had a varied career that included developing a data-parallel programming language and a compiler for it in Siberia in the 1980s, teaching real-time systems, databases and functional programming at the University of Surrey in the 1990s, and working in technical and management roles for Dell, T-Mobile and British Gas. He is currently with EE, the largest mobile network operator in the UK, where he is involved in shaping the application security strategy, providing specialist support to development projects, and promoting security awareness across the company.

David Garlan

Professor, Carnegie Mellon University

David Garlan is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he has been on the faculty since 1990. He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon in 1987 and worked as a software architect in industry between 1987 and 1990. His interests include software architecture, self-adaptive systems, formal methods, and cyber-physical systems.

He is a co-author of two books on software architecture: Software Architecture: Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline, and Documenting Software Architecture: Views and Beyond. In 2005 he received a Stevens Award Citation for “fundamental contributions to the development and understanding of software architecture as a discipline in software engineering.” In 2011 he received the Outstanding Research award from ACM SIGSOFT for “significant and lasting software engineering research contributions through the development and promotion of software architecture.” He is a Fellow of the IEEE a Fellow of the ACM.

Richard Soley

Chairman and CEO, OMG®

As Chairman and CEO of OMG, Dr. Soley is responsible for the vision and direction of the world’s largest consortium of its type. Dr. Soley joined the nascent OMG as Technical Director in 1989, leading the development of OMG’s world-leading standardization process and the original CORBA specification. In 1996, he led the effort to move into vertical market standards (starting with healthcare, finance, telecommunications and manufacturing) and modeling, leading first to the UML and later the MDA. He also led the effort to establish the SOA Consortium in January 2007, leading to the launch of the Business Ecology Initiative (BEI) in 2009. The Initiative focuses on the management imperative to make business more responsive, effective, sustainable and secure in a complex, networked world, through practice areas including Business Design, Business Process Excellence, Intelligent Business, Sustainable Business and Secure Business. In addition, Dr. Soley is the Executive Director of the Cloud Standards Customer Council, helping end-users transition to cloud computing and direct requirements and priorities for cloud standards throughout the industry.

Dr. Soley also serves on numerous industrial, technical and academic conference program committees, and speaks all over the world on issues relevant to standards, the adoption of new technology and creating successful companies. He is an active angel investor, and was involved in the creation of both the Eclipse Foundation and Open Health Tools.

Previously, Dr. Soley was a cofounder and former Chairman/CEO of A. I. Architects, Inc., maker of the 386 HummingBoard and other PC and workstation hardware and software. Prior to that, he consulted for various technology companies and venture firms on matters pertaining to software investment opportunities. Dr. Soley has also consulted for IBM, Motorola, PictureTel, Texas Instruments, Gold Hill Computer and others. He began his professional life at Honeywell Computer Systems working on the Multics operating system.

A native of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., Dr. Soley holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.