Jurij Paraszczak

Jurij Paraszczak retired from IBM Research after 34 years of working on a number of topics, from the development of semiconductor materials and processes that begat the IT infrastructure of the internet to the business, complex design and deployment systems that the Internet was responsible for.

Prior to his retirement, Dr. Paraszczak was the Director of the Research Industry Solutions and Smarter Cities program at IBM, where he helped global cities manage the demands placed upon their systems through research focused on the optimization of the management of infrastructure and flow of resources and citizens through the city. He was responsible for the coordination of 10 global IBM Research Laboratories to address the opportunities cities increasingly face worldwide, and led projects in over 20 cities for the 4 year duration of the Smarter Cities Program. These projects created the foundation of IBM's Smarter Cities business offerings.

Dr. Paraszczak also held prominent positions at IBM to grow entrepreneurial efforts. He was Chief Technology Officer of the IBM Venture Capital Group as well as Director of Technology for the IBM Research Emerging Business Group. Dr. Paraszczak identified and harvested innovation from the Research Division for IBM’s solutions and products, which helped IBM establish strong relationships in the venture community, drive integration, startup acquisition and grow venture strategies at IBM. As Director of the Research group, Jurij's job was to connect with IBM's customers and jointly create projects where IBM's Research teams would work directly with IBM's customers to create new solutions directed at a specific problem Over this period of some 12 years, he worked with hundreds of companies across a wide variety of industries ranging from telecom and media, government, utilities, retail, banking and insurance, aerospace, electronics, automotive,manufacturing and others. Many of these projects involved 1 year engagements which resulted in lasting relationships with those companies that led to further innovation and joint partnerships. 

In his career, Dr. Paraszczak also contributed to academia and industry with over 55 publications in various areas of telecommunications, technology and systems, and holds over 18 patents in many fields, from communications and plasma chemistry, to smarter city analytics and chip fabrication. He considers himself extremely lucky to have started work at IBM before the internet was even thought about and to retire after it had matured. He earned his PhD entitled " Photoinisation of trapped electrons in hydrocarbon glasses" and his BSc from the University of Sheffield, UK.