United StatesAbel Avellan
Abel Avellan holds a BS in electrical engineering from Simón Bolívar University and is a co-inventor on 21 US patents. Born in Venezuela and later a US citizen based in Florida, he founded and led Emerging Markets Communications (EMC) from 2000 until its sale for roughly $550 million in 2016, building it into one of the leading end-to-end satellite-services companies, serving customers including the US Department of Defense, the US State Department, and the United Nations. He founded AST SpaceMobile in 2017 to build a space-based cellular broadband network that connects directly to standard, unmodified smartphones, and has served as its chairman and CEO since inception. He was named the World Teleport Association's Satellite Teleport Executive of the Year in 2017 and serves as a commissioner of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.