Ossama (Sam) Iskandar, P.Eng., is a Registered Professional Engineer with the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) and the ‘Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec’ (OIQ). He has over 30 years engineering experience in the telecommunications and IT industries.

Mr Iskandar has held engineering and management positions at Northern Telecom, and operating Telcos. He directed business planning, engineering and operational experience with analogue and digital switching technologies, in particular the Northern Telecom DMS-100 family of products, and with the design optimization and operations of public, private and military telecommunications networks. This experience provided Mr. Iskandar with significant knowledge of both the operations and the networks of the Stentor members, the Canadian Independents (Quebec Tel, Northern Telephone, etc...) and the RBOCs in the USA.

Mr. Iskandar currently holds the position of Senior Certified Consultant IT architect with the IBM Corporation. He has developed technical designs to solve some of the most challenging service provider problems.  For example, he designed proposed a Voice over IP Call centre solution for a service provider in Cincinnati and India;  recently proposed an ASP solution for a wireless service provider; developed an ISP solution for an ISP wholesale hosting at Cable & Wireless and  designed a net. commerce solution for a major e-business service provider in Colorado.  Sam has excellent skills in IP Internet technology as well as deep knowledge of the telephony infrastructure and is experienced in merging the two networks to help xSP offer compelling services.  For example, Sam developed and Implemented an SS7 WIN services enabler using IS41 messaging for the Canadian Wireless services providers,  an IVR application to modify, and report Personal Identification Numbers for Credit Cards. His implementation of  Wireless Enhanced services using IS41 protocol was patented and the patent awarded in December 2001. He is a leader in assuring the professional development of other IT architects in the profession. He is a member of the IT architects certification review board for IBM since 1999.

Mr. Iskandar’s experience also includes assisting major organizations (in particular, the provincial Governments of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and BC, as well as the Royal and the Scotia Banks) in the design and implementation of their private networks and has first hand experience with the introduction of new features and services and telecommunication solutions based on Centrex and ISDN. He has further practical experience in planning, designing and implementing the Stentor Vnet network, the USAF Scopedial Network and Bell Canada’s Operator Services. As Business Services Planning Manager he gained first hand experience with meeting the needs of major business, consumers and governments.

He became a member of the foundation, served on the Grants Committee, and then accepted the position of Secretary in November 2004.