Name: Sana Tariq

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• Organization: Telus

• Sub-project(s):

• Short biography: Sana Tariq, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Fulbright alum, brings over 15 years of expertise in telecom and cloud-native technologies. As Principal Architect at TELUS, she drives 5G core and O-RAN evolution and API-driven innovation to enable automation and programmability. A pioneer in cloud-native adoption, she co-founded TELUS's Open Source Program Office
  and Project Nephio, received Nephio's Top Contributor award ((2024) and has been serving as TSC Chair (2025). Sig Architecture Vice-chair (2025) and GenAI and Nephio lead (2025)

• Intent: Support Project nephio adoption across vendors, cloud providers and broader ecosystem.

Name: Girish Kumar

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• Organization: Infosys Limited

• Sub-project(s):

• Short biography: Girish is a Principal Architect with over 25 years of rich experience in Telecom domain with expertise in Telco Cloud Orchestration, GitOps methodology, Cloud-Native technologies, SDN/NFV and VoIP/IMS Architecture. Girish is an avid open-source contributor and has led architecture definition and development of multiple Client projects and Solution Initiatives from Concept to Market in networking domain using open-source platforms like ONAP, Nephio, VOLTHA/SEBA, Mobicents and Magma.

• Intent: Support Nephio adoption across various Telco customers and align its feature roadmap to Industry requirements

Name: Ciaran Johnston

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• Organization: Ericsson

• Sub-project(s):

• Short biography: Ciaran is a senior expert in operations support systems (OSS) and programmable network architecture, and he is the chief architect of Ericsson’s Network Management portfolio. He has over 20 years’ experience in software development and architecture in the OSS domain, driving the evolution of management paradigms through multiple generations of networks. He is a strong believer in the use of open source software to progress industry alignment, drive standardization, improve openness and simplify processes in telecommunications network management

• Intent: Support the hardening and productification of Nephio components for use in telco and the broader industry, including new use cases to drive adoption

Name: Timo Perälä

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• Organization: Nokia

• Sub-project(s):

• Short biography: Timo is Head of Open Source Network and Service Automation at Nokia Technology and AI organization. He has over 30 years of experience in telecom industry collaboration, of which the recent 10 years in open source, focusing on community governance, creation and evangelization. One of the founding members of the Nephio project he serves at Nephio TSC and at LFN TAC, he’s LF Europe Advisory Board member, and co-chairs Eclipse’s Open Regulatory Compliance WG.

• Intent: Support Nephio evolution to become the de-facto Kubernetes based networking workload automation solution in the industry.

Name: Raj Panchapakesan

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• Organization: AccuKnox Inc

• Sub-project(s):

• Short biography: As the Global Head of Partner Ecosystem and Business Development at AccuKnox, I lead the creation and execution of innovative strategies to grow our cloud-native security platform and solutions across diverse markets & segments. Developer relations. With over 25 years of experience in technology-driven global enterprises, I have a proven track record of establishing and managing Strategic alliances, Business Development, and collaboration with cross-functional teams like Product, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Solution Engineering, Legal, etc. for product integrations, joint solutions, and GTM activities.

  Skills: Global Strategy · Strategic Relationships · Global Alliances · GSI · Teamwork · Partner Relationship Management · Global Business Development · Executive Management · Strategic Partnerships, Open Source Strategy, and representation in Open Source Consortiums

• Intent: As a governing board member of CNCF and CD Foundation for three years, I contributed to developing and growing the cloud-native computing industry. During my tenure, I helped shape the vision, direction, and governance of these influential open-source foundations.

  My passion is to empower businesses and organizations to understand open-source tools and ecosystems, build their products, and achieve their goals with strategic partnerships, cutting-edge technology, and industry best practices.

  In Project Nephio, I aim to contribute by helping make it the de facto standard for K8S-based cloud-native network automation in different industries and LFN projects. I started the SIG Security, and Accuknox is the core contributor and maintainer of the SIG in addition to contributing to Project Nephio.

  I want to represent Project Nephio on the LF Networking Strategic Planning Committee and the Marketing Advisory Council, build relationships, and promote Nephio with other LF and open-source projects and across various industry verticals.

Name : Balaji Varadaraju

• Organization: Red Hat

• Sub-project(s):

• Short biography : I have been committer/TSC member of OpenDayLight. Current TSC member and SIG ARchitecture chair of Nephio. I am also actively working on O-RAN and O-RAN SC efforts. In opensource for more than 10 years

• Intent : Continue to help project Nephio achieve its goal of cloud native orchestration, synergies with other projects such as Sylva, O-RAN , realizing AI use cases in Telco orchestration.

Name : Hsiu-Chi Tsai (@thc1006)

• Organization: National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU)

• Sub-project(s):

  • SIG Network Architecture (SIG-1)

  • SIG Automation (SIG-2)

  • Cross-cutting: O-RAN / AI-native RAN integration, academia & open-source outreach (COSCUP, university labs)

• Short biography : Hsiu-Chi Tsai is an undergraduate student in the at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) in Taiwan, focusing on O-RAN, cloud-native MANO, and AI-native 5G/6G networks. His current research implements an O-RAN–compliant intent-based MANO framework that integrates Nephio, O-Clouds, and multi-site Kubernetes clusters to deliver end-to-end network slicing across RAN, transport, and 5GC. He has been fortunate to contribute code, documentation, and testbed experiments to Nephio, and to serve the open source community as track lead for the “O-RAN in B5G/6G” track at COSCUP for three consecutive years, as well as a former Google Developer Student Clubs Lead at NYCU. Although he is still early in his career, he is very grateful for the opportunities to learn from the community and to support more experienced engineers and architects.

• Intent : I would be honored to serve on the Nephio TSC and, in a modest way, support the work of the existing leaders. My intention is to help connect SIG Network Architecture and SIG Automation around concrete end-to-end use cases: O-RAN–aware, multi-site 5G/6G slicing, service assurance, and AI-native / intent-based orchestration, and to turn these into practical Nephio user stories, packages, and documentation.

  As I move into my senior years at university, my research work and available time are both aligned with Nephio, so I can steadily contribute a few hours each week to TSC and SIG activities, code, and docs. I will do my best to learn from the more experienced members, to bring perspectives from academic testbeds and the COSCUP / APAC open-source communities, and to quietly take on detailed follow-up work where it is most helpful for the project.