Working Groups
HAPS Alliance Working Groups enable our eligible members to deepen their participation and enhance their influence on the development and deployment of HAPS ventures. Whatever your area of expertise, as a leader in your industry, our working groups enable you to have a direct and tangible effect on the future of high altitude platform stations (HAPS).
HAPS Alliance Working Groups cover several critical areas: marketing and communications, aviation, and telecommunications.
Working together to accelerate technical growth of safe, reliable HAPS systems to unlock the worldwide services potential of the stratosphere.
We do this by sharing a HAPS Alliance-centric concept of operations with our regulators and stakeholders to find the best route forwards.
Chair of the Aviation WG: Andy Thurling
Vice-Chair of the Aviation WG: Timothy Down
Working to advance the global HAPS ecosystem for telecommunications use cases through education, research, regulatory advocacy, and technical standards.
Currently focused on standards contributions to multiple groups and regulatory guidance in support of HAPS solutions.
Chair of the Telecommunications WG: Fatema Hamdani
Vice-Chair of the Telecommunications WG: Shiro Fukumoto
Supporting the creation of HAPS ecosystem by supporting Alliance goals in driving awareness, safety and regulatory alignment and commercial adoption.
Currently working on educating stakeholders about the value of stratosphere and hybrid networks; building credibility and establigh authority in HAPS operations and bridging the divide between aerospace, teleco and regulatory by facilitating cross-industry collaboration.
Chair of the Marketing & Communications WG: Matthew Nicholson
Working Group Chairs
Shiro FukumotoStandardization DepartmentSoftBankShiro Fukumoto is the Director of Standardization Department at SoftBank Corp. and assumes a similar role at HAPSMobile, responsible for spectrum-related international standardization activities in ITU-R, APT and 3GPP for both companies. He has around 15 years experience in the telecommunications sector addressing regulatory and technology standardization aspects. He played a leading role in key discussions on HAPS at WRC-19, ITU-R and APT, making major contributions to the establishment of WRC-23 agenda item 1.4 (additional identifications of HAPS frequency bands) as an APT rapporteur, and he is now leading the discussion of ITU-R proposals in HAPS Alliance Telecom Working Group as a leader of ITU Taskforce.
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Shiro Fukumoto is the Director of Standardization Department at SoftBank Corp. and assumes a similar role at HAPSMobile, responsible for spectrum-related international standardization activities in ITU-R, APT and 3GPP for both companies. He has around 15 years experience in the telecommunications sector addressing regulatory and technology standardization aspects. He played a leading role in key discussions on HAPS at WRC-19, ITU-R and APT, making major contributions to the establishment of WRC-23 agenda item 1.4 (additional identifications of HAPS frequency bands) as an APT rapporteur, and he is now leading the discussion of ITU-R proposals in HAPS Alliance Telecom Working Group as a leader of ITU Taskforce.
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