Dr Hemant Kanakia

The underlying concepts for Dr Kanakia's vision stemmed

from his tenure at AT&T Bell Labs, where he led an elite research team of

engineers to design advanced data network switching technology. The research

forms some of the core technology of today's Internet.

Dr Kanakia is presently a partner with Columbia Capital and

focuses primarily on technology investments. He was previously founder and CEO

of Torrent Networking Technology (acquired by Ericsson), a Columbia Capital

portfolio company. Under Dr Kanakia's leadership, Torrent advanced to become a

leading innovator providing advanced Internet routing solutions to

communications companies worldwide.

Hemant also co-founded and invested in Photuris, Inc and

Gemplex, a business-networking services provider offering secure connectivity

worldwide through its flagship IP VPN product portfolio.

Dr Kanakia holds a PhD in electrical engineering from

Stanford University. He holds several patents in the field of packet and cell

switching architectures and real-time traffic management algorithms. Over a

dozen of his research papers have been published in major communications and

trade journals including those of the IEEE, JSAC and SIGCOMM.