Prof Maziar Nekovee is currently the Dean of the AI Institute and Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Sussex, where he also leads the Research Centre in Advanced Communications, Mobile Technology and IoT. As the Dean of the AI Institute, he oversees the operation of an ambitious transnational education and research programme with Zhejiang-Gongshang University in Hangzhou, China, which is educating 1000 undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students across the two universities. Prior to this role, he was the Head of the Department of Engineering and Design at Sussex. In this role he was responsible for the leadership of a general Engineering Department, with over 600 students and 35 academics, and was also involved in the University’s overall operation leadership, as an elected member of the University Senate. Besides academia, he has significant leadership experience in industry. Prior to joining Sussex in 2017, he was with Samsung R&D, as the Head of the company’s European Research and Collaborations in 5G. In this role he established and greatly expanded Samsung’s research operations and collaboration footprint in the UK and across the EU, developed core technologies for 5G and translated these into an extensive portfolio of patents and contributions to global 5G standards. From 2001 to 2013, he was with BT (British Telecom) Research, as a Group Leader and Senior Scientist, where he developed innovative solutions and technologies for fixed and mobile networks, successfully led several internal and collaborative R&D projects and worked closely with BT’s business and strategy units. Maziar has a PhD in Physics (from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and a MEng in electrical and electronic engineering (cum laude) (from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands). He is the author of 200+ highly cited papers and a bestselling book and has 15 patents. Maziar is the recipient of a Royal Society (UK Academy of Science) Industry Fellowship, the Samsung Best Practice of Research Award, the BT Innovation Award, and has several best paper awards.