Ricard Vilalta

Chair of ETSI Software Development Group – TeraFlowSDN (TFS) at ETSI

Speaker

Dr Ricard Vilalta is Research Director at Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), leading the Zero-Touch Management and Secure Network Service Orchestration research line within the Packet Optical Networks and Services (PONS) unit. Ricard earnt his PhD from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), which was recognized with the Extraordinary PhD Award for the 2013–2014 term. He has been listed among the Stanford/Elsevier World's Top 2% Scientists since 2020 and serves on the Board of Directors of Telecos.cat as Coordinator for International Relations.

Ricard is currently focused on applied research in network infrastructures, with a special emphasis on 5G-Advanced and 6G orchestration, zero-touch management, network digital twins, and quantum-safe communications (PQC and QKD). Ricard chairs the ETSI TeraFlowSDN Software Development Group (SDG TFS), serves as Convenor for ETSI TC NET, and actively drives open-source software integration across standards bodies like ETSI and IETF.

Apart from this, Ricard is an opera and theatre lover, an avid reader of secondhand books, and particularly fond of seeking out local culinary gems and historical sites wherever his travels take him. More can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardvilalta/