Alan Kaplan has over ten years of experience leading research and development of technologies for next-generation networked devices. He was formerly Department Head of Middleware and Software Technologies at the Panasonic Princeton Research Laboratory, where he led the development of consumer device-oriented peer-to-peer communication platforms, iDTV (OCAP/MHP) middleware, mobile-to-home access and control protocols, and Java instant messaging and presence APIs. Prior to that, he held faculty positions in computer science departments at Clemson University and Flinders University of South Australia. He holds a PhD and a MS degree in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, and a BS degree in Computer Science from Duke University. He has served on the Steering Committee of the IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference since its inception in 2004.

Ilya Braude serves as Lead Software Engineer for Drakontas LLC.

Prior to joining Drakontas in April 2008, he worked for the network management group of Eastern Research (acquired by Sycamore Networks in 2006), for which he developed software for managing carrier-grade networks. Since then, Mr. Braude has worked as a research engineer for Drexel's ACIN program working with and developing tools for ad-hoc wireless networks. Mr. Braude has been developing applications for mobile platforms since 2004.

He received his BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Drexel University in 2005.

Mark Zimmerman serves as a Lead Software Engineer for Drakontas LLC.

Mark joined Drakontas in May 2009. Prior to joining Drakontas, he worked for the Navy’s Ship Systems Engineering Station where he gained more than 8 years of experience developing and testing mission critical military computer systems. He has experience developing emergency response situation awareness applications, as well as graphical user interface software for hand-held, mobile computing applications.

Mark received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University in 2000 and his M.S. in Computer Engineering from Villanova University in 2004.

Keith Pifko serves as a Software Engineer for Drakontas LLC.

Prior to joining Drakontas in October 2010, Mr. Pifko worked as a Computer Engineer at SPAWAR Systems Center – Pacific in San Diego, California. Through several research projects, he developed software for the U.S. Navy that recognized objects in satellite images.

Mr. Pifko received his B.S. in Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2007 and his M.S.E. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008.

Ben Krejci currently serves as a software developer and analyst for Drakontas. Mr. Krejci develops web-based applications to enhance communications to help reduce backlog for DNA forensic analysis. Mr. Krejci has extensive experience utilizing, developing and extending a wide range of web frameworks and protocols, including HTTP, XML, Javascript, AJAX, Drupal and PHP.

Mr. Krejci previously held a two-year internship at the Panasonic Princeton Research Laboratory where he developed and maintained the lab’s external and internal web sites.