More information on the LFN Governing Board Member Committers Representative can be found here.

Eligible candidates:

• Candidates must be active committers to at least one LFN project. 

• Candidates can self-nominate, or be nominated by other community members. In the latter case, candidates must accept the nomination before the election is conducted.

• Candidates must be an active committer to an LFN project which differs from the LFN project that the currently servicing LGBMCR is an active committer of.

• There is a single (1) LGBMCR seat on the Governing Board.

• The 2024 LGBMCR was from the Anuket community.

All Self-Nominations will take place from Jan 30, 2025  to  Mar 17, 2025  at 5pm PT.

Voting will take place via OpaVote  at the conclusion of the self-nomination period and will last 2 weeks.

Please copy and complete the template below to self-nominate for the LFN Governing Board Committer Representative. 

Name:

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Representative Group: (Nephio, ODL, ONAP, FD.io, etc)

Short Biography:

Statement of Intent: 

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Name: Muddasar Ahmed

Open

Representative Group: 5G Super Blueprint

Short Biography:

Muddasar Ahmed, a graduate of The George Washington University, and currently a Principal Architect at MITRE, brings over 20 years of IT experience to the LFN Governing Board. His background as a developer, tester, system and solution integrator, service architect, and management advisor provides him with a well-rounded perspective. As a Vice Chair of the TAC, he is actively engaged in advancing LFN's Quality and Security Goals and the AI Task Force.

Muddasar has a strong track record of supporting security hardening and process improvement, as demonstrated by his work with ONAP SECCOM on initiatives such as Security Logging, Software Bill of Materials, and Technical Debt Management. His experience as a delivery lead in Cisco incubation labs, where he developed revenue-generating multi-vendor technology solutions for service providers, showcases his ability to create innovative solutions. Muddasar's contributions to the Super Blueprint Community, including the development of an agile delivery model and a template for necessary solution information, highlight his commitment to improving industry solutions. Furthermore, Muddasar is actively working on the Lab in a Box package to streamline the recreation of SBP solutions.

Muddasar also contributes to improving standards, supporting the inclusion of key issues and solutions in Technical Specs within 3GPP, ORAN Alliance, and ETSI. As a founding member of the team that developed FiGHT, a 5G threat model, he demonstrates his dedication to addressing emerging security challenges.

Statement of Intent: 

Muddasar's goal is to create an active platform for committers to raise issues and provide feedback to the Board. He will also promote greater openness and collaboration between high-level leadership and technical contributors. Drawing on his experience with the Super Blueprint Community, he will work to enhance the quality and processes for industry solutions.

If elected, Muddasar will focus on fostering a high-performing environment within LFN, balancing the needs of committers with the strategic direction of the Governing Board. Muddasar is committed to improving two-way communication between LFN leadership and the committer communities. He will leverage his expertise to ensure the voices of committers and contributors are heard and that their concerns are addressed.

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Name: SHANKAR

Open

Representative Group: 5G-SBP (5G Super Blueprint Project)

Short Biography:

Shankar is the CTO at CORAN LABS with expertise in 5G Core, O-RAN, and cloud-native technologies. With deep, hands-on experience, he has been instrumental in implementing eBPF in the User Plane Function (UPF) of the 5G Core. His expertise spans a range of open-source projects, including OpenStack, Magma, OpenAirInterface, OSC, L3AF, Free5GC, Open5GS, Aether/SD-Core, Canonical and KupenStack.

He has conducted extensive end-to-end testing and performance benchmarking of eBPF with UPF across various open-source projects in the O-RAN functional split 7.2x architecture. His work also includes SD-Core deployments in diverse modes such as AF_Packet, SR-IOV + DPDK, and CNDP, along with scaling in the User Plane using Juju Operators in Charmed SD-Core. Notably, his team initiated HEXAeBPF, an open-source project that integrates an in-house developed eBPF-enabled UPF with SD-Core/Aether, demonstrating groundbreaking advancements in 5G Core performance and scalability.

Beyond 5G Core technologies, he has contributed significantly to SMO/OAM and RICs (near-RT RIC and non-RT RIC), where he has tested xApps like KPI Monitoring and Traffic Steering. His portfolio includes other innovative projects like xFAPI (OSC INT PROJECT), Q-RAN (Quantumized O-RAN), and QORE (Post Quantum Core), focusing on L1-L2 interoperability in O-RAN and advancing post-quantum cryptography in the 5G Core and RAN.

In 2023, he participated in the LFN Mentorship Program under L3AF, where he successfully implemented eBPF on Windows, broadening its applications in the 5G ecosystem. At DNTF 2023, he showcased the integration of L3AF with the 5G UPF as part of the 5G-SBP, featuring a live demonstration. He also delivered an impactful talk at DNTF in Budapest, Hungary, where he presented a demo video on eUPF integration with Free5GC.

As an active member of the open-source community, he serves as a maintainer for NgKore and the Magma India Open Source Communities. He has organized and participated in numerous events, including OpenInfra Days and Cloud Native Security India, where he delivered insightful talks, presentations, and demos on optimizing the 5G user plane with eBPF, managing eBPF programs with L3AF and O-RAN.

Statement of Intent: 

Shankar is committed to strengthening the bridge between the LFN Governing Board and the committer community, ensuring that technical contributors have a strong and active voice in shaping the future of LFN projects. His goal is to establish a structured and transparent feedback loop that enables committers to share insights, raise concerns, and actively participate in strategic discussions at the board level.

With extensive hands-on experience across various open-source 5G Core and O-RAN projects, Shankar understands the challenges and opportunities that committers face in building and maintaining industry-leading solutions. If elected, he will work to enhance collaboration between technical and leadership teams, ensuring that decisions at the board level reflect the technical realities and priorities of the community.

Shankar will advocate for clear communication, process improvements, and increased visibility for the contributions of LFN committers. By leveraging his deep technical expertise and open-source leadership, he aims to foster an inclusive and high-impact environment where committers can drive innovation while aligning with the broader strategic direction of LFN.