RFID
Where is the RFID industry standing today?

RFID promises to revolutionize the consumer goods/retail supply chain and other industries over the next several years. The widespread use of RFID tags will transform the consumer supply chain and fundamentally improve the timeliness and accuracy of information available for business decisions. Press releases, news stories, and company announcements on RFID are appearing at an increasing pace. Today's renewed push by retailers like Wal-Mart to use passive RFID should help accelerate wider adoption of this technology. January of 2005 was Wal-Mart’s deadline for its top 100 vendors to implement RFID as their product identity.

Almost two years have passed since our last seminar on RFID. We are having another seminar this year to discuss the new trends and improvements in RFID since our last visit. Please join us at this SVCWireless seminar which provides a view of current and emerging RFID industry and challenges on security issues.

Moderator:

Naresh Barta
Naresh is the chairman and CEO of Intelliflex Corp., a mixed-signal semiconductor start-up in the RFID space. Naresh is a serial entrepreneur with 25 years of high technology industry experience in design and development, marketing, and P&L management. He was CEO and co-founder of XaQti prior to its acquisition by Vitesse Semiconductor, VP & GM of Sierra Semiconductor, VP and GM of Brooktree (now Conexant), and spent 11 years as department head at Texas Instruments. Naresh is also co-founder of the Silicon Valley Angels. He holds BSEE, MSEE, and MBA degrees and is a registered engineer.

Speakers:

Salil Pradhan
Salil Pradhan is the Chief Technology Officer for the HP RFID Program. He also heads RFID and sensor network research at HP Laboratories for comprehensively and securely tracking objects, their interactions and the environmental conditions, at the lowest possible cost. The work is important to business for supply chain management and asset tracking. He is a frequent speaker at technology conferences. Prior to this role, he has lead development of key technologies in areas ranging from mobile computing to compiler technology.

Prior to joining HP, Mr. Pradhan co-founded Tendril Software, Inc., for automating software development and maintenance process. Pradhan received his MS in Computer Science from Northeastern University. He has written several technical papers and has over 50 patents invarious stages of processing.

Keith Direkx
Keith is Senior Vice President of Operations for Embarcadero Systems Corporation with responsibility as CIO for delivering IT services and solutions to Marine Terminal Corporation and its joint venture partners - Total Terminals Inc (Hanjin), West Basin Container Terminals (Yang Ming Lines and China Shipping) and Seaside Terminal Services (Evergreen).

Prior to Embarcadero Systems Corp. Mr. Dierkx was Savi Technology's Vice President of Strategic Markets and Business Development. As the first commercial executive hire at Savi Technology, he formulated the business model, go-to-market strategy and strategic markets from 1999 through 2002.

Mr. Dierkx was a member of the Auto-ID Center at MIT (now part of EPC Global) technology board which developed the standards around the Electronic Product Code and associated standards and infrastructure. He managed the first RFID pilot at Wal-Mart under the auspices of the Auto-ID Center.

Mr. Dierkx is an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley and Duke's Fuqua School of Business.

Vijay Sarathy
Vijay is the director, RFID product marketing and strategy for Sun's RFID Business Unit. In this role he is helping define and drive Sun's overall RFID strategy as it pertains to solutions for EPC and non-EPC applications. Just prior to this current role, Vijay was a part of Sun's Java Marketing organization where he was responsible for the product Management of J2EE integration technologies and also helped drive overall J2EE adoption. Before that Vijay held various engineering development and management roles in the system software area both inside and outside of Sun. Vijay is a Mechanical/Industrial Engineer by training with 14+ years of industry experience with software technology. He has an MS from Texas A&M University and an MBA from Santa Clara University, California.