Albert Lysko is an award-winning engineer, researcher and innovator. He is with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) since 2007, where he is a Principal Researcher II. Whilst at CSIR he was one of pioneers in cognitive radio(CR) research. He organized the first African CR research forum in IEEE Africon'11, which attracted 2"Best Paper" conference awards, and wrote first technical paper in television white spaces (TVWS) fromCSIR. His leading experimental research in TVWS from 2012 onwards enabled provision of the Internet to over 20,000 users in 3 African countries, and setting up South African national TVWS regulation and contributed to TVWS regulations in other African countries and in USA (via FCC). The 2013 Cape Town TVWS trial and Prof Lysko's technical research report for it, became one of the most visible TVWS items on Google. Lysko is a Fellow of South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) and Senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and served in many IEEE roles incl. as the Chair: IEEE South Africa. He was also a Founding member of the IEEE AP-S Online Resources and in South Africa he tripled activities in South Africa. The achievements were recognized with several IEEE MGA and R8 awards. His professional achievements have also been recognized through delivering plenary (2017), keynote (2014) and multiple invited talks, as well as in serving as the General Chair for ICACCE 2016 and Technical Chair for IEEE Africon 2017 and several awards incl. 3 Best Paper awards. Lysko's research and development are in dynamic spectrum access (especially TVWS), 5G/6G, wireless communications, wave propagation, antennas (especially smart low-power antennas), and software defined networking (SDN). Lysko has authored over 70 research papers, 25 popular and news articles, a book, 2 book chapters, 3 patents, and led producing several technology demonstrators. He was also a contributor to two IEEE industrial standards (IEEE 145 published in 2014. and IEEE P1900.6a). Lysko gave several TVWS courses and tutorials and has organized and co-organized several international conferences, and over 100 IEEE events. Lysko served as a reviewer for the IEEE Trans. on Anten. and Propagat. (which is in the Top 10 Journals in Telecom.), and other journals. He also served on TPCs of and as reviewer for numerous international conferences. Lysko was the South African representative in EU Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Actions CA15104 "Inclusive Radio Communication Networks for 5G and beyond"(IRACON) and IC1102 "Versatile, Integrated, and Signal-aware Technologies for Antennas" (VISTA). He has also been a member of South African National Preparatory Working Group (NPWG) assisting Department of Communications to prepare for ITU's WRCs.
