Bill Huang

Mr. Bill Huang is a technology visionary, innovator and entrepreneur with more than thirty years experience in the development and market introduction of emerging technologies. Bill started his career at AT&T Bell Labs, co-founded UTStarcom and most recently served as the General Manager of the China Mobile Research Institute. As CTO of UTStarcom, Bill was a trailblazer in the soft switch transformation, proposing the “network is the switch” concept in the mid-1990s, leading the creation of the world’s first mobile softswitch system, and co-founding the International Softswitch Consortium. Bill was also a pioneer in Internet Protocol television, leading the development of the first carrier-class IPTV system. In his most recent position, Bill oversaw innovation, research and development for the world’s largest communications network. He advocated for TD-LTE as an international 4G standard, developed the first operator-based Android smart phone open operating system (OMS), initiated the adoption of Hadoop and OpenStack technologies for cloud computing and big data platforms, and spearheaded next-generation mobile Internet concepts.

The challenge of designing the ideal software and networking approach for robots has captured Bill’s attention since 2012, which led to his launching CloudMinds in 2015 with the vision to operate humanoid robots that would be in homes by 2025. In 2016, Bill was recognized with the IEEE CQR Chairman’s Award, cited “for his leadership to surgically implement the most advanced technologies across the world’s largest communications network, for his influence unifying mobile technologies into a single world-wide standard, and for his service inspiring fellow engineers with vision to deliver value to end users.” Bill earned a M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Illinois and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology.