No. 16 George Polk, founder and CEO, The Cloud
Last year's position: Not placed
Relative to his final position, Polk perhaps had more said about him in this year's Agenda Setters debate than any other individual - and the words were almost entirely complimentary.There are few other representatives from wireless in this year's 50. Arguably at 27 the CEO of Cambridge Silicon Radio counts as a man driving Bluetooth but Vodafone's CEO, representing mainstream cellular wireless, only comes in at 42.
So Polk - whose company The Cloud does wholesale Wi-Fi connectivity across Europe, partnering with organisations such as the railways in Sweden and major operators such as BT Openzone, O2 and indeed Vodafone - must be doing something right.
He's a veteran of wireless ventures and a humanitarian, spoken of highly by those that know him and as comfortable talking about world affairs as 802.11x.
As one panellist puts it: "It's a disruptive approach, making a number of things happen. I think the opportunity for The Cloud is phenomenal."
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the Agenda Setters poll over the years:
"China clearly has many dimensions and many are setting an agenda. It's at the political level, it's at the investment level, it's at the contract manufacturing level and it's at the software level - it's all over."
--Peter Rowell, Regent Associates executive chairman and Agenda Setters panellist
How to spend $4 billion? Google has plenty of ideas New York Times via International Herald Tribune
The resurrection of Steve Jobs The Economist
Developing the Skype ecosystem: Q&A with CEO Niklas Zennstrom DigiTimes.com
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