Our Management Team

Tod Switzer, President

Over a 15-year career Tod has gained extensive knowledge of telecommunications concepts and protocols. His combined professional and academic endeavors have given him exposure to all aspects of communications systems, from physical layer principles to Intelligent Network services and most things in between. His ability to understand the details of a technology and communicate the right level of information to anyone has led to his success over the years.

He found his calling when he joined Award Solutions and got involved in training. Prior to joining Award Solutions, Tod was a Principal Engineer for the Network Systems Lab of Samsung Telecommunications America. He successfully built and led a team that designed the wireless subsystems of a next generation switching system. The scope of Tod's responsibility spanned global product development teams, including a U.S. based architecture team and overseas based detailed design and implementation teams in India and Korea. As a Project Leader at DNA Enterprises, Tod led a team of Call Processing engineers to define architecture for the Intelligent Distributed Network Architecture project. The project employed Object Oriented techniques for requirements gathering and system definition.

Tod gained a wealth of experience in his ten years with Bell Northern Research and Nortel Networks. He managed a team that defined a software architecture that made use of ATM to provide both traditional and advanced subscriber services for wireless networks. He managed the software development team responsible for call processing, mobility management, networking and authentication software for a low power PCS system based on CT2Plus technology. Tod was also a key member of a digital cellular technology demonstration team that was responsible for CTIA selecting the Nortel TDMA scheme as the basis for the first North American digital cellular standard. He was a key contributor to the X.25 LAPB data link controller used for both wireline and wireless central office switches.

Tod is a recipient of the prestigious award of Excellence for Product Achievement. Tod holds a BSEE with a concentration in Computer Engineering from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, which he attended on an Academic Scholarship. He also holds an MSEE with a concentration in Digital Signal Processing from the University of Texas at Dallas, which he attended on a BNR Postgraduate Award and a UTD Engineering Fellowship.

Satyajit Doctor, Founder and Vice President, Knowledge Services

Satyajit Doctor has extensive business and industry experience in advanced wireless and Internet technologies. Over the years, Mr. Doctor has been instrumental in the definition and design of new products and network architectures spanning 2G and 3G technologies including CDMA, TDMA, GPRS, UMTS as well as Network Management strategies and packet based (IP/Mobile IP) protocols. He has participated in the system design, development and deployment of several new products.

In his previous role as the Senior Manager of Wireless Systems Engineering at Nortel, Mr. Doctor was responsible for network capacity, performance engineering and creating intellectual property. He has received many accolades for his accomplishments, including the distinguished Nortel Technology President's award for his contributions in defining the Nortel CDMA product architecture.

Mr. Doctor co-founded Award Solutions in 1997. He has been instrumental in building the company into one of the most preferred providers of these services by continually proving Award's value and demonstrating integrity, expertise and flexibility.

Award's mission is to help its customers maximize the performance of their people, products and networks through advanced technology training and professional services. Award has more than 100 corporate customers including the majority of the top 10 telecommunications equipment manufacturers and service providers - many of which are listed in Fortune 500. Award's training programs are designed to deliver maximum benefit to the participants and Award's professional services help customers meet time-to-market challenges by creating sophisticated yet practical solutions. For two consecutive years (2001-2002), Award Solutions has been selected to the SMU Cox Business School's "Dallas 100TM List" representing the fastest-growing private companies in the north Texas area.

Ramki Rajagopalan, Founder and Vice President

Ramki has an extensive background in telecommunications systems, specializing in CDMA access technology and third generation wireless systems. He also has completed projects requiring in-depth knowledge of data signaling protocols such as TCP/IP, SONET/SDH and ATM. A software developer by trade, Ramki has been involved in the design, development and testing of numerous projects using object oriented technology and CORBA. His experience with many leading telecom and datacomm companies exposed him to the areas of telecom-related services, switching systems, digital transmission systems, and radio systems. He has worked on a wide variety of projects, ranging from system reliability and performance modeling and analysis, to the actual design and implementation of wireless and data systems.

Ramki demonstrated his valuable leadership abilities in a wide array of CDMA projects, including development of CDMA radio systems and design of OA&M applications in CDMA systems. Throughout his career, Ramki has continuously participated in planning and conducting technical training seminars. His lecture circuit includes high tech firms such as Nortel Networks and Samsung Telecommunications, and the prestigious MobiCom98 (IEEE/ACM) conference. On a more informal basis, he has conducted training seminars such as a "CDMA Boot Camp" as an introduction to CDMA technology. Ramki's presentation skills coupled with his dedication to teaching have contributed to his success in the training arena.

Ramki holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Dallas, as well as a Master's degree in Civil Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Jayant Kulkarni, Vice President, Professional Services

Jayant Kulkarni heads up the Professional Services business unit at Award Solutions. This business unit offers a broad range of engineering and consulting services to the wireless industry. In a span of two years, this organization has grown into a 30+ person operation with offices in Richardson, TX, and Bangalore, India.

Prior to Award Solutions, Jayant was the Director of Business Development at Trilogy, an enterprise software company. He was instrumental in defining Trilogy’s Price Optimization solution suite. His work in defining a business value-based deal structure helped Trilogy win a major business value-based contract in the manufacturing industry. He then led the business consulting engagement at the client, helping them realize over $50M in value during the first year.

Before Trilogy, Jayant was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. Here he served senior executives in the telecom, IT and private equity industry. His engagements spanned many functional areas – mergers/acquisitions, investment analysis, marketing strategy development, new business development, and operational effectiveness.

Jayant began his career in research and development in the areas of wireless systems and broadband networks for Nortel and Samsung Telecom. He was a Senior Staff Engineer at Samsung, where he defined the interface requirements for the next generation switch. At Nortel, he provided technical leadership and managed R&D groups developing and conducting technology trials in enhanced services, low-power wireless systems and voice over ATM applications. He holds a patent in wireless systems and has authored a number of technical publications.

Jayant holds a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of S. Carolina, and a M.B.A. in Finance, Marketing and Entrepreneurship from the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

Tod Switzer

Satyajit Doctor

Ramki Rajagopalan