Mika Skarp
Cloudstreet founder and CTO, Mika Skarp is an awarded telecom network technologist, entrepreneur and executive. After over a decade and a half developing groundbreaking technology-enabled business models for Nokia Siemens in Finland, Mika consolidated his learnings, experience and patents to launch Cloudstreet and the world’s first application-aware network.
Recognizing the glaring disconnect between and an increasingly data-hungry world and an outdated “best effort” business model for telecom service that jeopardized the case for future infrastructure investment, Skarp saw an opportunity. Moving toward a 5th generation (5G) network overlay and an army of new product, service and content delivery innovations waiting to come to life, telecom operators would have no choice but to find a way to begin differentiating service levels to better manage finite bandwidth and a spectrum of different needs.
Skarp is active in the telecom industry as a writer, commentator, facilitator and mentor focused on the future of innovation in support of net neutrality and a common, free and open internet. The founder and first president of the WiMAX Forum an industry-led, not-for-profit organization that certifies and promotes the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products based upon IEEE Standard 802.16, Skarp has built a strong international network of players focused on leveraging technology to connect the world and the people in it, wherever they are. In 2003 Skarp was mandated to lead product management for Nokia’s Village Connection an innovative GSM solution based on converged architecture, merging the potential of an IP network to create a virtualized GSM network and at substantially reduced cost making it more accessible to users, particualrly in developing regions. To the program’s credit, the Village Connection was runner up for the Global Mobile awards in Barcelona 2007, considered by the industry to be the equivalent of the Oscars of the Mobile industry.