David Howard

David Howard has been involved in electronic communications hardware and software for nearly 40 years – that’s before ‘.com’ existed! He initially started at the age of nine by obtaining an Amateur ‘Ham’ radio license in 1974. After building several shortwave radios, he built his first computer (H19 terminal, H89 computer) around 1980 before graduating to an IBM PC around 1982. In the mid 80’s David formed a company with his uncle, and designed and built an IBM PC compatible co-processor board, which implemented the then fledgling ANSI X9.9 Financial Institution Message Authentication and X9.17 Key Management Services standards --- precursors to cyber security systems used today. He was a major contributor to video compression development for a US DoD video terminal that docked to secure telephone units for battlefield communications. David authored more than six patents on signal processing and antenna systems for wireless communications, and was a significant contributor to IEEE standards for wireless networks 802.15.4g, as well as 802.15.4k. More recently David has been involved with applying wireless technologies to city infrastructure projects such as streetlight management and control, and the Internet of Things.