Berlin, January 29, 2024 – Earlier today, FIWARE Foundation announced that Mr. Yasunori Mochizuki, a longtime NEC Corporation Fellow, has been appointed as the new chairman of the FIWARE Board of Directors (BoD), starting from January 1, 2024. It is a privilege for FIWARE to bring a leader on board who has decades of experience, a history of driving business to excellence, and who is recognised for being an active and widely known member of the FIWARE ecosystem since its inception. This will positively impact FIWARE’s further growth and globalisation. Yasunori takes on the role of Dario Avallone, the former Director of Research and Development at Engineering S.p.A., who successfully filled this position for more than four years.

Being an NEC Fellow since 2019, Yasunori is an experienced executive in the IT sector with expertise in technology and business innovation. He has focused on fostering global multi-stakeholder collaborations through international organisation and technology association activities. He has also worked on policy recommendations for advancing digital transformation in cities and communities. Yasunori has contributed to the technology governance and public-private collaboration discussions in international forums, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Economic Forum’s G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance. He became a member of FIWARE’s Board of Directors in March 2017, when NEC joined the foundation as a Platinum Member. As an internationally recognised thought leader and manager disseminating the smart city and smart industry vision to the global community, Yasunori will bring his distinguished expertise in providing guidance, coaching, and support to the foundation and its board.

“As a member of FIWARE’s Board of Directors, I have been involved with the evolution of FIWARE since its early days. My recent appointment as the board’s chairman reflects a new level of commitment from my side to FIWARE’s current mission and goals. I believe it will help to define new paths for the foundation and its rapid growth as a platform for innovative open source solutions. I am very proud to take this highly respected position alongside all BoD members to achieve big goals, such as further increasing FIWARE’s community engagement and ensuring that its members are actively using and promoting FIWARE technologies worldwide,” said Yasunori Mochizuki.

Dario Avallone commented, “FIWARE’s credibility and, consequently, its current adoption within markets on a global scale, have a great potential for further growth. I am proud to hand over FIWARE’s chairman position to Yasunori. He has been playing an important role in the governance of FIWARE since its very early stages, and I am convinced he will successfully manage and support FIWARE’s Board of Directors to unlock even more of its enormous potential.”

Andrea Battaglia, CEO at FIWARE, added, “FIWARE is well-positioned for the next wave of the digital revolution, and I am honored to work with Mr. Mochizuki and the thirteen members of the Board of Directors to showcase even better how FIWARE can help build smart and innovative solutions today and in the future.”

Picture: Yasunori Mochizuki, Chairman of the FIWARE Board of Directors

About Yasunori Mochizuki
Yasunori has more than 25 years of experience in NEC’s Corporate Research Division, where he took on leadership in both promoting research activities and in commercialising research outcomes in diverse domains, including semiconductor devices, ICT systems, and AI-oriented computer science. He received his PhD in Electronics Engineering from the University of Tokyo. His current title of NEC Fellow means that he actively participates in innovation policy proposals and building global ecosystems related to smart societies and digital transformation. Prior to his current position at NEC, he was Senior Vice President of NEC Corporation, responsible for the corporation-wide coordination of NEC’s technology innovation and the IoT business strategy.