Eric Beane is the CTO for eSimplicity, a woman-owned small business focused on modernizing enterprise-scale data analytics platforms and championing AI/ML governance and security for customers across the DoD, National Security, and Federal Health & Civilian communities. Originally an MPO civilian, Eric has spent his industry career helping customers leverage advancements in technology to improve mission and warfighter capabilities. Prior to joining eSimplicity, Eric was one of the original architects of MPO’s eVo environment and NEOFORGE platform and has spent the past decade helping IC and DoD customers accelerate their commercial cloud migrations across multiple classification domains.
Dr. Vikram Manikonda is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of BlueHalo. He has over 28 years of experience that spans research and development, entrepreneurship and business ownership, and senior business executive roles. As CTO, he leads
the development of BlueHalo’s strategic technology roadmaps and spearheads cross portfolio collaboration across BlueHalo’s Defense, Intelligence, and Space & Products Portfolios. He has the responsibility for managing and deploying the company’s IRAD and other investments, to accelerate capabilities and mitigate customer risk for BlueHalo’s key programs with DoD and IC in areas such as autonomy, next generation missile, cUAS systems, satellite / hypersonics telemetry, tracking and control, human health performance and multi-int solutions. Prior to joining BlueHalo as CTO, he was with Intelligent Automation Inc (IAI) for 23 years and served as its President and CEO since 2014. Vikram is the recipient of the University of Maryland Clark School, Glenn L. Martin Medal, the NASA team achievement award for contributions to the development of the Airspace Concept Evaluation System. He is currently on the Board of Visitors for the University of Maryland, James A Clark School of Engineering, and the Chair of the Industry Advisory Board for the Matrix Lab at the University of Maryland. He has also served as the Chair of the Strategic Advisory Council for Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland, and was a founder, investor and on the Board of Directors at Cryptonite, LLC.
Dr. Manikonda’s research interests span a wide range of topics that include non0linear control, motion description languages, autonomous systems, data analytics, AI/ML, OSINT, cUAS and space technologies, and is the author of over 50 publications in refereed journals, books, and conference proceedings in these areas.
Greg Starkey is an independent technical consultant who brings a long history of technical and mission leadership in the intelligence community. He spent more than 35 years in the government developing SIGINT mission capabilities and leading signals analytic developments. His last role was as a Technical Leader of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate. He also spent 10 years as a Technical Director at Booz Allen Hamilton focused on Technical Innovation, both in capability and staff development. Greg also serves as the technical advisor on the MasterPeace Solutions Advisory Board.
Edward (Ed) Thiel is a LM Fellow for Electronic, Cyber & Information Warfare in Lockheed Martin Corporation’ s RMS. In this capacity, he is responsible for leading the corporation’s RF Enabled Cyber/EW systems to align with Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) principles using Agile development practices and DevSecOps. His efforts are enabling the team to develop solutions using service-specific Cyber and Electromagnetic Warfare systems that plug and play within a common software development infrastructure to enable seamless delivery of mission effects in any domain. These common products will enable the team to integrate advanced capabilities and reduce the time to integrate government or third party solutions. Part of that responsibility also includes developing and teaching mission specific courses to grow the teams knowledge base.
Throughout his career, Mr. Thiel has led several critical initiatives for Lockheed Martin Corporation and led several efforts with corporate to develop mission roadmaps that cut across all of Lockheed Martin. He bring deep, mission-relevant experience in solving complex “hard problems” by incorporating novel Software Defined Radio (SDR) solutions in support of the Cyber EW Missions. These investments encompass design and implementation of embedded systems, including micro-service architectures, Mission Planning, and Command and Control (C2); and create solutions that are highly responsive and rapidly reconfigurable to counter evolving threats.