Career

Carmelo Zaccone obtained, in ’98, a MSc. in Computer Science & Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain.

Passionate about Software & Networking with a deep sense of innovation, creation and development, he ignited his career by joining the international team of Network Architecture & Strategy from Alcatel Bell Labs.

There his R&D focused on Internet Protocol core related technologies, amongst IPoDSL/NAT/QoS/VoIP, to foster the astonishing Internet’s grow. Then he targeted cybersecurity concerns of the business thru protocols amongst AAA/policy/VPN. As active member of Bell standardization core team, responsibilities covered IETF, Broadband & IPv6 Forum. As proactive delegate, he leaded the Alcatel wide’s IPv6 investigation team and the business strategy to integrate this in the products portfolio and took active operations in EU FP7 programs.

With the rise of Internet access, in 2000, he co-founded Indigo Software to develop a revolutionary scalable IP telephony platform, with the SIP protocol that leverages today worldwide TELCO voice, Instant Messaging and multimedia infrastructures. As CTO, he leaded the research group and co-shared the software development engineering team. His core developments focus was security, authentication & privacy of the protocol as well as the voice/video call sessions. The company was amongst the pioneers in the area to develop, a fully JAVA based audio/video/chat/IM, communication platform dedicated to TELCO or Internationals organizations.

Afterward, he took over to the IT team of a Walloon SME by joining E-System in 2002. There he concentrated on ICT project management, IT architecture developments (system & network administration), software development and technical writing for numerous third-party customers as well as public organization such as the Walloon government. Amongst the underlying responsibilities of the technical writing, were the specification for public tenders, Request for Information as well as ICT recommendations for deployment of software & hardware solutions to answer the common IT challenges within businesses operations. The software development activities were including both client/server solutions as well as User Interface applications on both Desktop and Web Front End strategy.

Aiming to broadly share the acquired expertise’s, from 2004 to 2016, he repositioned to the public sector by joining the Walloon Government’s organization “Agence du Numérique” as Technology Intelligence Analyst & ICT sector promotion. He was member of the Technology & Legal Watch team where primary role was Technology Evangelist. Besides, he was administrating the enterprise & web ICT services and lead the Computer Security Incident Response Team. He participated in numerous projects amongst security audits, e-government strategy, public municipal/regional/governmental tenders and decision-making policies for the regional government digital strategy with Marshall 4.0 & Digital Wallonia (CyberSecurity, Industry4.0, Smartcity). On both national & global scale, he actively took part to promote of the Belgian ICT SME & startup ecosystems by assisting AWEX on business development, trade mission & exhibition show organizations. Collaboration included worldwide network of trade commissioners to assist foreign innovative tech companies to establish European HQ in Belgium.

With the rise of the Internet of Thing, he joined in 2016 the Walloon SME Skylane Optics to care of the international standardization activities within ETSI, ITU-T, IEEE, IETF. Amongst the areas of interest, Smart Home & Smart City, he authored the two first European norm of the ETI SDMC Working Group. He also leaded the FTTx X/GPON laboratories, the Plastic Optical Fiber (IEEE 802.3bv) and ITU-T G.H-hn researches. He was advisor in the project “Generic Management, Surveillance and Exchange Platform for the Internet of Things” and software developer for the multiservice high-speed IoT WallPlug (WiFi, Z-Wave, Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy, 6lowPAN, ENOCEAN, Near Field Communication) a miniaturized embedded platform for smart building for which he co-designed the device.

During several years, he was guest professor at the University of UMONS He is (co-)author of Internet technology patents and several papers published in International journals and presented on recognized International conferences. As a “multi faced digital technology evangelist” combined with an “entrepreneur profile”, he co-founded several startups and in 2008 Finatech (fintech consulting) and WrLS (wireless meshed networking) were born.

2016 - 2020: Standardization & Innovations Senior Advisor for Skylane Optics

2008 –2009: Cofounder, Managing director & CTO for Finatech (When Finance meets Technology)

2008 –2009: Cofounder, Managing director & CTO for WrLS (Your liberty of access)

2004 –2016: Technology Intelligence Analyst & ICT sector promotion for Belgian Walloon Government within “Agence du Numérique”

2001 - 2004: IT Architect, Project Manager, Software Engineer, ICT Manager for E-Systems

1999 - 2001: Cofounder, Head Software Engineer & Standardization for Indigo Software (We join the dots!)

1998 - 2000: Research Engineer & IPv6 CTO for Alcatel Bell Labs

2012 –2016: Ambassador & Entrepreneurial evangelist for Startups.be

Support to startups and entrepreneurs willing to create, grow and expand internationally their tech business.

2010 –: Board member for the Belgian chapter of the IPv6 Council Belgium

Create national awareness of IPv6 technology to keep the Internet and its applications growing.

2010 -2016 Co-founder of the “ICT Guided Tour” AWEX branding:

Along Federal, Regional or Ministerial Belgian Economic Mission, the “ICT Guided Tour” are technology, business development and fund-raising missions. They illustrate the latest innovations from the Digital Ecosystem while leveraging partnerships, commercial agreements and startups investment. APAC Editions (#1 2011, #2 2015); USA Editions (#1 2013, #2 2015); North American Edition (#1 2014).

2009-2013: Co-founder of the IP-Forum conference & expo:

The Forum aims to give IT, Network and Telecom managers from the private or public sector as well as CEOs, a detailed view on business and strategic issues of the ICT.

2007 - 2018: Member of «Commission Consultative pour l'Aménagement du Territoire et de la Mobilité» for the municipality of Mettet, Belgium

Providing telecom/network advises and guidelines to the municipality administrative council to promote high speed broadband access and digital citizen’ services within the territory.

2006 –2015: Member of the Jury of the Alcatel-Lucent Innovation & master’s in science thesis awards

Technical assessment and examiner of the rewards for Computer Science master thesis from Belgian universities and high school.

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