TADSummit is the thought-leadership event in programmable communications / telecoms for over ten years.

We deliver the truth, no BS. Truth you can build your business on. The segmented agenda is here, and we’ll add Day 2 soon. All times are Eastern Standard Time (New York City time).

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Summary, Timed Agenda: 22 October

08:00 Wootag’s Journey. Raj Sunder, Founder and CEO Wootag

08:30 Conquer the world or win the customer? A cross road moment for CPaaS players seeking to shore up investor confidence. Matteo Gatta, Founder GenNoor, ex-CEO BICS

09:00 The 20+ year Governance and Certification Gap in A2P SMS. When is it Going to End?. Daniel Gill, Founder and CEO Augnet

0930 Can a new foreign owned business even enter the US market for messaging? Alex Kinch, Wholesale telecommunications expert

10:00 Realizing the Benefits of Business Identity for Optimal Consumer Contact. Gerry Christensen, Head of Caller ID Reputation® Partnerships and Expert in Communications Identity and Trust

10:30 What Kevin Cares About. Kevin Graham, Mobile Technology and Cloud Communications Leader Mobile Engagement | A2P Messaging | Network APIs | CPAAS

11:00 Webio: Revolutionizing Debt Conversations with Conversation Intelligence. Paul Sweeney, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Webio

11:30 How Drachtio and Jambonz are changing the World of Programmable Telecoms. Dave Horton, Creator of jambonz, the open source voice gateway for CX/AI, and drachtio.org, the open source framework for SIP Server applications

SPONSOR KEYNOTE 12:00 Why TNID Matters. Noah Rafalko, Founder CEO TSG Global

12:30 LUNCH

SPONSOR KEYNOTE 13:00 The Rise and Rise of vCon. Thomas McCarthy-Howe, CTO STROLID, Innovating Automotive Conversations

13:30 SCITT and vCon AI governance for conversations, at scale. Steve Lasker, Director of Ecosystem DataTrails

14:00 Programmable Global Carrier Digital Services. Sebastian Schumann, Networks & Services International, Deutsche Telekom

14:30 Unified compliance for human and AI agents with Call Score. Surbhi Rathore, CEO & Co-Founder, Symbl.ai

15:00 By The Numbers. Alan Quayle, Founder TADSummit and TADHack, Independent Consultant, Focused on Reality not Marketing BS.

16:00 When are we going to get GPT4o (Her) in open source? Nikhil Gupta, Founder, CTO @ Vapi (YC W21)

Timed Agenda: 22 October

08:00 Wootag’s Journey <return to summary>

Raj Sunder, Founder and CEO Wootag

At the first TADSummit in 2013 Raj Sunder, then Vice President – Value Added Services at Bakrie Telecom presented on “New Business Models for Telecom Application Success”

Shortly after TADSummit, Raj began a journey that led to the founding of Wootag in 2014, now Wootag is 10 years old.

Wootag harnesses the power of human curiosity with simple, immersive interactions, directly within any visuals.

Wootag is an interactive video provider, that is they tag videos at particular points with calls to action. For TADHack 2015 they made a ‘click to call’ with Apidaze. Wootag has experimented with click to call services in Indonesia and experienced call through rates as high as 22%, which is amazing.

The purpose of this session is to catch up with Raj and his adventures with Wootag. While not squarely in the programmable communication space, we love to catch up with innovators we’ve crossed paths with over the years and learn from them.

08:30 Conquer the world or win the customer? A cross road moment for CPaaS players seeking to shore up investor confidence. <return to summary>

Matteo Gatta, Founder GenNoor, ex-CEO BICS

• The CPaaS aggregation model is changing
• From SMS to Channels, the software opportunity
• The meaning of scale in the AI-powered transition to CXaaS
• Which concrete customer’s problem Network APIs help to solve, today?
• Data and Cloud Sovereignty, local anchor or necessary burden?

09:00 The 20+ year Governance and Certification Gap in A2P SMS. When is it Going to End? <return to summary>

Daniel Gill, Founder and CEO Augnet

• Quantifying the scope and scale of the AIT (Artificially Inflated Traffic) problem facing the A2P SMS ecosystem today.
• Learning from Skype, being unable to answer in 2011/2012 simple SMS governance and certification questions as Microsoft took Skype over. And those questions remain unanswered today.
• Augnet was created to address the lack of governance in SMS messaging using a vast network of real devices (both SDK in apps and SIM app). 
• No certifications in the SMS supply chain mean things like performance measurement are challenging, almost guess work, DLR (Delivery Receipts) can be faked. Hence it’s open to abuse by the industry itself and any bad actor with a little bit of knowledge.
• The bad actors can be a company or an employee within a company, hence the emergence of A2P Revenue Assurance.
• Adoption of Augnet has been slow, what needs to happen to accelerate it, and finally close the Governance and Certification Gap in A2P SMS.

0930 Can a new foreign owned business even enter the US market for messaging? <return to summary>

Alex Kinch, Wholesale telecommunications expert

Understanding the changes in the US messaging market. You can no longer just grab some SMS enabled numbers and send / receive traffic. Those days are long gone.

A quick review based on personal experience of the complexity of messaging in the US across 10DLC, toll free, short codes, TCR, Twilio, Syniverse, Neustar/NANPA, and the many other agencies involved in limiting the competitiveness of the US messaging market.

Will it get easier after November’s elections? Unlikely, but in the medium term will things change?

10:00 Realizing the Benefits of Business Identity for Optimal Consumer Contact <return to summary>

Gerry Christensen, Head of Caller ID Reputation® Partnerships and Expert in Communications Identity and Trust

• Recognize the role of business identity in service provisioning and administration
• Identity business identity attributes and how they are used by service providers to support platforms and enterprise
• Understand how business identity info is leveraged to improve consumer contact metrics
• Understand how business identity relates to lawful conduct and compliance with federal and state regulations
• Recognize how communications technologies are evolving to support more robust business identity use cases
• Understand how the convergence of KYC, UI/UX, consent management, monitoring, authentication and validation supports a Trust Framework for improved consumer contact

10:30 What Kevin Cares About <return to summary>

Kevin Graham, Mobile Technology and Cloud Communications Leader Mobile Engagement | A2P Messaging | Network APIs | CPAAS

11:00 Webio: Revolutionizing Debt Conversations with Conversation Intelligence <return to summary>

Paul Sweeney, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Webio

In this session, Paul Sweeney, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Webio, will showcase how their platform is transforming the way debt conversations are managed, leading to better outcomes for all stakeholders. Through a live demo, attendees will witness firsthand how Webio’s innovative approach leverages conversation intelligence to navigate the complex landscape of debt collection.

Collections environments often present some of the most challenging customer service interactions due to the sensitive nature of conversations about money. Webio’s proprietary artificial intelligence technology sets itself apart by its ability to detect various vulnerabilities, sentiments, and the likelihood of payment from the end-user. This enables collections agents to tailor their approach and provide a more empathetic and effective service.

Webio’s solution also prioritizes end-to-end data privacy, compliance, and audit trails, ensuring that sensitive information remains secure and that all interactions adhere to regulatory standards. Notably, Webio’s platform operates independently, without the need to rely on major cloud providers like Amazon, Google, or Azure.

Last year, at the TADSummit in Paris, Webio shared its framework for the future of custom enterprise language models. In this session the company will demonstrate how multiple small models, each tailored to a specific task, can be orchestrated to deliver highly effective and efficient communication solutions.

11:30 How Drachtio and Jambonz are changing the World of Programmable Telecoms. <return to summary>

Dave Horton, Creator of jambonz, the open source voice gateway for CX/AI, and drachtio.org, the open source framework for SIP Server applications

• History of Drachtio and Jambonz, from ideas to products
• Review of Drachtio customers and use cases, e.g. Vida
• Review of Jambonz customers and use cases, e.g. Cognigy, Vapi, Consig, Voxist
• How do open source projects survive?
• Jambonz roadmap and contribution to the next phase of programmable telecoms: embedding it everywhere.

SPONSOR KEYNOTE 12:00 Why TNID Matters <return to summary>

Noah Rafalko, Founder CEO TSG Global

• My journey: from traditional telecoms, through VoIP, landline SMS, to the wild west we find ourselves in with rampant spamming, robocalling, and fraud.
• My mission: to create the plumbing of secure paths outside of the wild west, where brands and consumers can have TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) compliant communication that are verifiable thanks to self sovereign communications / identity.
• TNID can stop SIM swap fraud. The carrier and customer have both claimed their identity (TNID profile) and have an existing relationship. A SIM swap request would need the customer’s approval on their preferred channel.
• The core idea is using SSI (Self Sovereign Identity, your TNID profile) as the store of your identity, verified credentials, and beyond that the scope of the TNID profile is up to you, for example opt-ins, access rights, approvals, etc.

12:30 LUNCH

SPONSOR KEYNOTE 13:00 The Rise and Rise of vCon <return to summary>

Thomas McCarthy-Howe, CTO STROLID, Innovating Automotive Conversations

• IETF Update
• vCon and SCITT: SCITT is the supply chain integrity transparency and trust standard. As a supporting protocol to vCons. If conversations are inputs to work flows, SCITT can assure their integrity.
• vCon at TADHack and a summer intern project at Jambonz. Jambonz projects now have vCons, e.g. Vida from Lyle Pratt.
• vCon at STROLID, review of top use cases, learning so far.
• vCon in 2025, some predictions.

13:30 SCITT and vCon AI governance for conversations, at scale <return to summary>

Steve Lasker, Director of Ecosystem DataTrails

• An introduction to Supply Chain Integrity, Transparency and Trust (SCITT), an IETF standard.
• Why does managing the compliance of goods and services across end-to-end supply chains matter? For example, SCITT could be the end of deep fakes!
• SCITT supports the verification of goods and services where the authenticity of entities, evidence, policy, and artifacts can be assured.
• Combining SCITT and vCon deliver AI governance for conversations, at scale. As vCons move through the lifecycle, SCITT builds a transparent ledger, enabling regulators and auditors to keep consumers safe. Consent is built into the vCon/SCITT combo.
• Some SCITT use cases to help you understand the relevance of SCITT and why the combo with vCon is essential for business use cases.

14:00 Programmable Global Carrier Digital Services <return to summary>

Sebastian Schumann, Networks & Services International, Deutsche Telekom

– Demystifying ‘digital’ from a wholesale perspective

– Service portfolio including programmable communications and workflow automation 

– Service portal, enabling a new kind of wholesale business

14:30 Unified compliance for human and AI agents with Call Score <return to summary>

Surbhi Rathore, CEO & Co-Founder, Symbl.ai

• Symbl.ai’s journey so far: offering state-of-the-art understanding and generative models with an end-to-end platform for building real-time voice intelligence  in your applications.
• Call Score, is a GenAI-powered evaluation tool that scores today’s hybrid workforce of human and AI agents using text and voice
• There have been multiple incidents of voice agents hallucinating while interacting with customers, thereby negatively impacting customer trust.
• With ‘Custom Criteria’ & ‘Scorecards’, different scoring logic can be used for their human & AI agents and directly integrate call scores into their CRM, BI tools or custom applications.
• Call Score helps business leaders make data-driven decisions by providing them in-depth visibility into the performance of their customer-facing teams by analyzing “what they are saying” and “how they are saying it”.

15:00 By The Numbers <return to summary>

Alan Quayle, Founder TADSummit and TADHack, Independent Consultant, Focused on Reality not Marketing BS.

Quantifying the extent and impact of SPAM, Robocalling, Artificially Inflated Traffic, and other Frauds over the PSTN and around the world.

Understanding the losses driving large brands away from SMS. Survey results and case studies.

Understand the monetary and social impact of frauds over the PSTN.

Case study reviews, some painful examples to understand how horrific the impact can be on the individuals, their close and extended family.

Why has the PSTN degraded?

What should be done now, next year, and into the future? Is regulation the only way given the poor performance of self-regulation in messaging. Why has the industry walked away from facing reality?

16:00 When are we going to get GPT4o (Her) in open source? <return to summary>

Nikhil Gupta, Founder, CTO @ Vapi (YC W21)

GPT4o brought sci-fi Her to real life, a feat many thought was years away.

Their demo has invigorated the community and a thousand flowers are blooming.

Let’s talk about:

• What are the most promising approaches?
• What are the unknowns?
• When can we expect something in open source?