Program Speakers

Farukh Aslam is the Chief Executive Officer of Sinclair Digital (SD) a low voltage design and consulting company developing Digital DC-Microgrid Buildings. In 2019, Aslam successfully developed the Sinclair Marriott Autograph Hotel which is widely considered the most diverse PoE and DC Microgrid project in North America. From the completion of the Sinclair Hotel, Aslam created SD to bring expertise of the sustainability and cost benefits of a DC building infrastructure to the marketplace. Since its inception SD has been involved in several design build projects and continues to evolve DC infrastructure in buildings.

Howard Berger has over 30 years of experience in technology and commercial/investment real estate. As Realcomm's SVP Programs, he manages its US and international conferences and CIO programs. Previously, he was with The Jamesan Group, which specialized in strategic technology consulting for the commercial real estate industry and prior to that, he was with TRW Real Estate Information Systems where he developed real estate information systems for the mortgage, appraisal and title insurance industries.

With a career spanning over 12 years, Bart has built a reputation for utilizing innovative technology to fulfill the dreams of home builders and buyers. As the Corporate Sales Manager at LumenCache, he has spearheaded initiatives to make homes and buildings smart from the start. Bart also serves as the Outside Sales Manager for SunFarm Energy, Northwest Florida's Certified Tesla Solar Roof Installation partner. He is dedicated to fundamentally changing people’s relationship to energy, working hard to create a more affordable, intelligent, and sustainable built environment.

Bob Kroon is the CEO and Founder of August Berres. August Berres provides applications for DC-powered workplaces, eliminating the need to install 120V power at every workstation. Bob has a forty-year history in electro-mechanical durable goods and the furniture industry. His career began as an Industrial Engineer for Maytag. His furniture background began in manufacturing engineering with The Hon Company in 1979. In the next 18 years, he served in assignments in product engineering and general management. His subsequent experience includes contract manufacturing for low-volume, high-value, high-complexity electronic enclosures.

Andrew Lu serves as Director of Product Management in the Engineering Sustainability Office (ESO) at Cisco. He passionately nurtures and promotes DC-microgrid solutions like Fault Managed Power (FMP) and Power over Ethernet(PoE) for sustainable building infrastructure. Prior to Cisco, Andrew’s career spanned multiple sectors including industrial automation, intelligent building system integration, and home automation. Andrew represents Cisco as a co-founder and the President of the FMP Alliance.

Luis Suau is the Chief Business Officer at Sinclair Digital. With 40 years of overall IT experience; ,26 of them at Cisco, Luis previously worked as a Technical Leader in Cisco's IOT Business Unit and was a key member in developing Cisco's Digital Ceiling and Digital Building Solutions. Luis helped to engineer the highly innovative Marriott Sinclair Hotel which leverages the use of Lithium-Ion Energy Storage, Digital Electricity, POE and USB-C. After its completion in 2020, Luis left Cisco to pursue his passion of expanding the scope of Digital Building Systems with a goal of developing a Building as a DC Microgrid.

Bob Voss is a Distinguished Engineer in Panduit Corporate Research and Development, driving technological innovation. Focused on industrial and building automation, his expertise spans shepherding of groundbreaking technologies such as Single Pair Ethernet and Fault Managed Power. Bob plays a key role in setting global engineering standards in IEEE, TIA, NEMA, ODVA, and NFPA, as well as nurturing strategic technology partnerships. Bob is the chairman and one of the founders of the FMP Alliance.

Hannah Walker is the Chief Operating Officer of Sinclair Digital Services, a low voltage design & consulting company developing Digital DC-Microgrid Buildings. She joined Sinclair Group to initially help design and implement smart buildings technologies at Sinclair Hotel which was completed in January of 2020 as the most diverse PoE powered, DC microgrid building in the world.

As Managing Partner, SVP of Strategy & Business Development, Lisa Woods is responsible for developing Realcomm's strategic relationships with the technology companies that participate in the company's conferences, seminars and CIO events. Prior to joining Realcomm, Lisa spent 10 years working with building owners and managers, providing technology solutions in telecommunications, access control and security.

Founder of Realcomm Conference Group, an education organization that produces Realcomm, IBcon and CoRE Tech, the world's leading conferences on technology, automated business solutions, intelligent buildings and energy efficiency for the commercial and corporate real estate industry. As CEO, Jim interacts with the largest companies globally pertaining to some of the most advanced and progressive next generation real estate projects under development.