TM Forum honors Outstanding Contributors and Catalyst projects
At Action Week this week TM Forum recognized three outstanding contributors and two winning Catalyst proofs of concept that have made valuable contributions back to the Collaboration Program.
Dawn Bushaus
25 Sep 2019
TM Forum honors Outstanding Contributors and Catalyst projects
At Action Week this week TM Forum recognized three Outstanding Contributors and two winning Catalyst proofs of concept that have made valuable contributions back to the Collaboration Program.
At every Action Week event, we recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to TM Forum’s collaborative work. These individuals spend countless hours beyond their ‘day jobs’ working on the important standards and best practices that TM Forum contributes to the communications industry. Their dedication is inspiring.
Kevin McDonnell, Huawei
Kevin’s exemplary contribution has covered a number of key projects in the Open Digital Architecture (ODA) project, including leading the coordination of standards with other industry bodies such as GSMA and ONAP, and participating in the 5G Riders on the Storm Catalyst proof of concept, which explores how 5G can help communications service providers support critical services in extreme weather events. Kevin’s contribution to the Catalyst project displayed his extraordinary technical writing skills and the ability to distill complex concepts into language everyone can understand. Kevin continually demonstrates great teamwork and always interacts professionally with great respect for others’ opinions.
Abinash Vishwakarma, Netcracker
Abinash has contributed across many programs at TM Forum, demonstrating strong leadership and consistent and active participation. He recently led work to assess the impact of 5G on communications service providers’ businesses and is now leading an assessment of 5G and internet of things (IoT) interaction in order to define new business models and how to operationalize them. Abinash’s breadth of knowledge of the telecoms industry, 5G technology and monetization, and his passion, have enabled him to contribute across many projects. His collaborative style is extremely effective in bringing out the best from all team members by providing support and guidance while valuing all inputs and viewpoints.
Knut Johannessen, Telenor
Knut has been a prolific contributor to the Open API Program through his proactive engagement in API schemification, and he has been instrumental in the creation of the API pipeline. Over the last year, Knut’s sustained contribution to Open API spec jam weekly calls has also earned the respect of his project colleagues who consider him to be an excellent team player. He always displays a professional and respectful attitude and takes time to explain the basis of his view with objectivity and transparency.
Outstanding Catalysts
TM Forum also recognized two winning Catalyst teams from the Digital Transformation World 2019 event for their significant contributions back to the Collaboration Program. TM Forum Catalysts bring together companies to create innovative solutions to common challenges. Champions bring a business challenge that they need to solve and work alongside participants who each provide a technical solution to the problem.
Riders on the storm
The Riders on the storm Catalyst project has been recognized for its work in demonstrating how to manage 5G network slicing, in this case to support critical public safety services. The team developed a network slicing template and an end-to-end framework to efficiently manage 5G services, including management functions such as service ordering, service orchestration, resource orchestration, service level monitoring and service assurance.
Champions BT, KDDI, Orange, Telecom Austria, TIM and Telenor collaborated with a group of suppliers, which included Accenture, gen-E, Huawei, Incognito, Netcracker and TEOCO, to show that even in catastrophic storm conditions, some level of communication can still be delivered for high-priority services essential to managing emergency response. Results of this Catalyst are being contributed back to the TM Forum Open Digital Architecture.
Watch this video to learn more:
AI for IT & network operations
The AI for IT & Network Operations (AIOps) – Phase II Catalyst was recognized for showing how to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to communications service providers’ (CSPs’) network operations. The project is a continuation of one showcased at Digital Transformation Asia in Kuala Lumpur last November, which won the Outstanding New Catalyst award. The first phase aimed to show, test and demonstrate that AI technology is mature enough to be effectively infused into operations service management processes.
In this phase the team extended this work and explored challenges to AIOps, such as inconsistent and fragmented data, immature components and support systems, lack of end-to-end service management and governance standards, trust and accountability issues. Champions include China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, Hong Kong Telecom (through its subsidiary PCCW Global), TIM and Telefónica Germany, and participants include BOCO Inter-Telecom, BONC, Huawei, Si-Tech and Tech Mahindra.
Dawn began her career in technology journalism in 1989 at Telephony magazine. In 1996, she joined a team of journalists to start a McGraw-Hill publication called tele.com, and in 2000, she helped a team at Ziff-Davis launch The Net Economy, where she held senior writing and editing positions. Prior to joining TM Forum, she worked as a contributing analyst for Heavy Reading.
Dawn Bushaus
