Dr. F. Mekuria, Chief Research Scientist, CSIR Meraka ICT Institute, in Pretoria, South Africa. He leads the 5G and Affordable Broadband Networks research at the CSIR. He is the proponent of a 4th leg for the 5G standards aimed at technologies for addressing the next billion underserved population in emerging economies. He has a Ph.D. from Linköping University, in Sweden, and has worked for 10 years as senior research Engineer at Ericsson Mobile Communications R&D lab in Sweden, where he developed over 12 US/EPO patents. He has been working with the mobile and internet service industry in developing countries: Setting up next-generation network labs in Africa, Development of mobile applications programming courses, Network resource sharing for affordable broadband connectivity, and development of telecom regulatory frameworks and capacity building for telecom regulators in Africa. He is at present leading the disruptive technology research in dynamic spectrum sharing and affordable network technologies. The project made headlines as the only emerging economy technology patent contribution for smart spectrum sharing and unlicensed spectrum networks. The group lead by him has successfully completed the international qualification process and standardization of white space spectrum databases in competition with global technology companies, led by the UK Ofcom regulator. Dr. Mekuria is also involved in postgraduate skills development in wireless communications with a number of African universities through his engagement as Adj. Professor at the University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Science, South Africa.