2026 Schedule of Events

November 4–6, 2026
San Francisco, California

2026 MARCONI AWARDS GALA & INSTITUTE FORUMS

The 2026 Marconi Awards Gala & Institute Forums bring together the brightest minds in technology, from pioneering researchers and global executives to policymakers, academics, and innovators, for an unparalleled convergence of ideas, dialogue, and impact.

This year’s expanded program unifies the Marconi Society’s three Institutes—Advanced Wireless, Internet Resilience, Artificial Intelligence—into a Cross-Sector Institute Forum, culminating in the prestigious Marconi Awards Gala celebrating the field’s most transformative contributors.

Wednesday, November 4

6:00 PM – 7:30 PM Pavilion Room

Welcome Reception

An excellent opportunity to connect with fellow attendees, speakers, and sponsors in a relaxed, convivial setting before the Forum programming begins.

Sponsored by: Leonardo & Telespazio, Italy

Thursday, November 5

8:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Venetian Room Foyer

Cross-Sector Institute Forum Registration

The Forum’s flagship day welcomes global attendees to consider the most consequential conversations shaping technology today. Dynamic keynotes, expert panels, industry expert forum, and curated networking experiences are woven throughout the day to engage and inspire the world’s brightest minds and innovators.

9:00 AM
Venetian Room

Opening Remarks & Forum Welcome

John Janowiak
President & CEO
Marconi Society

9:10 AM
Venetian Room

Q&A with Bob Metcalfe: Connecting Geothermal Arrays

Robert Metcalfe
2003 Marconi Prize Recipient

An estimated 200,000 years’ worth of geothermal energy lies beneath the Earth’s surface, yet extracting it economically—as heat or electricity—remains a significant technical and economic challenge. The oil and gas industries, propelled by advances from the shale revolution, offer geothermal development a running start.

This interactive discussion proposes a novel framework for scaling geothermal energy production by drawing direct parallels to the architectural evolution of the Internet.

9:30 AM
Venetian Room

Building Trust and Safety in AI: What Public Deliberation Reveals About Industry’s Next Steps

Andreas Katsanevas
Head of Governance Innovation
Meta

In this keynote, Andreas Katsanevas will explore how industry can strengthen trust and safety in AI at a moment of rapid adoption and societal transformation. Drawing on insights from the Industry‑Wide Forum — a collaboration between major technology companies and Stanford University — he will share what public deliberation reveals about expectations for responsible AI, highlight the value of cross‑sector collaboration, and outline key themes that leaders across industry, academia, and government must consider as AI becomes increasingly embedded in critical systems.

9:45 AM
Venetian Room

Internet Resilience in the Age of AI

Bobby Blumofe
EVP and Chief Technology Officer
Akamai

Cybersecurity is about more than finding and patching coding vulnerabilities. It’s also about culture, people, processes, and systems. Whereas the advent of deep learning more than a decade ago provided powerful new detection and classification capabilities that tipped the scales in favor of cyber defense, the more recent advent of Generative AI may be a tip in the opposite direction. For example, LLMs can automate the full attack chain, pursuing targets with unrelenting and dogged determination. At the same time, even when the underlying intent is good, LLMs can take over the full software lifecycle, running, testing, and deploying code with minimal human oversight.

This session explores the systematic risks of our new normal for internet resilience while asking the question: is AI automation an inevitable evolution, an existential threat, or something else?

10:05 AM
Venetian Room

Why Technical Solutions Alone Cannot Save the Open Internet
Panel Discussion

10:35 AM – 10:50 AM
Venetian Room

Networking Break

Sponsored by: MoreAI

10:50 AM
Venetian Room

The Internet’s Hidden Vulnerabilities and Who Bears the Consequences
Panel Discussion

11:30 AM – 1:30 PM
Crown Room

Networking Luncheon

11:30 AM – 2:00 PM

Internet Resilience Experts Forum
By invitation and application only; closed-door session

1:30 PM
Venetian Room

Home Network as Critical Infrastructure

Ryan Thompson
Chief Technology Officer
eero

Modern life runs on an assumption of constant Internet connectivity, and consumers, businesses, and regulators are taking notice. Like electricity before it, the modern home network now powers how we learn, work, play, and stay connected with family, while still being expected to protect users from invisible security threats. This session explores how advances in interoperability, resilience technologies, security, and AI have steadily improved the customer experience, but significant work remains.

1:45 PM
Venetian Room

The Edge-Native Future: Where Wireless, AI, and Distributed Compute Converge
Panel Discussion

2:15 PM
Venetian Room

Architecting Agentic Systems at Scale

Vinesh Sukumar
VP, Product Management
Qualcomm

AI is evolving from generative use cases to autonomous agents that operate across devices, networks, and environments. As agentic AI drives exponential growth in token demand, the industry’s next challenge is optimizing compute, memory, and connectivity to architect AI systems that can deliver the enhanced privacy, security, and governance needs, while adhering to latency, efficiency, and TCO constraints. In this keynote, Dr. Sukumar will highlight Qualcomm’s vision for a distributed AI future where our doorbells to datacenters portfolio, common software foundation, and ecosystem partnerships can together enable a unified compute fabric.

2:30 PM
Venetian Room

Quantum Information Technology and Quantum Error Correction
Panel Discussion

Friday, November 6

8:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Venetian Room Foyer

Cross-Sector Institute Forum Registration

9:00 AM
Venetian Room

Welcome Remarks

Dennis Roberson
Chairman of the Board
Marconi Society

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

AI Executive Forum
By invitation only; closed-door session

9:05 AM
Venetian Room

AI-RAN and ISAC: A New Revenue Inflection Point for the Mobile Industry

Ray Dolan
CEO
Cohere Technologies

Sensing and AI-RAN is a massive inflection point for the mobile industry and a big revenue opportunity for mobile operators and ecosystem developers for the next two decades. Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) will be funded and focused initially on defense and homeland security, but mobile customers and enterprises will benefit. In this keynote, Ray Dolan will focus on ISAC for defense, the mobile operator opportunity with AI-RAN and sensing and use cases for enterprise and consumers.

9:20 AM
Venetian Room

2026 Marconi Fellow Fireside Chat

A one-on-one conversation with this year’s Marconi Fellow Prize recipient, Robert Calderbank

Andrea Goldsmith
President
Stony Brook University

Robert Calderbank
Charles S. Sydnor Distinguished Professor of Computer Science
Duke University

9:55 AM – 10:15 AM
Venetian Room

Networking Break

10:15 AM
Venetian Room

How Wi-Fi, 5G, and Shared Spectrum Are Reshaping Enterprise Connectivity
Panel Discussion

10:45 AM
Venetian Room

Industry Keynote

Rob Soni
VP RAN Technology
AT&T

11:05 AM
Venetian Room

Q&A with the 2026 Paul Baran Young Scholars Award Recipients
Panel Discussion

Hear directly from the 2026 Paul Baran Young Scholar Award recipients as they discuss forward-looking perspectives on technology’s most pressing challenges.

Yasaman Ghasempour
Assistant Professor
Princeton University

11:50 AM
Venetian Room

Closing Remarks & Tribute to Guglielmo Marconi

Giulia Fortunato
President
Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi

12:00 – 4:00 PM

Advanced Wireless Executive Forum
By invitation only; closed-door session

4:30 PM
Terrace Room Foyer

Gala Registration Opens

Please check in with the Marconi Society staff to receive your table assignment.

5:30 PM

VIP Reception
By invitation only

6:00 PM
Terrace Room

Marconi Awards Gala Reception

7:00 PM
Grand Ballroom

Marconi Awards Gala & Dinner