While the Potomac Officers Club’s upcoming 2025 5G Summit is set to feature a host of representatives from the Department of Defense, the event is not just a networking destination for defense contractors. One key speaker especially will bring extensive insights from his experience working to spread a spirit of innovation in the federal civilian space: Erwin Gianchandani of the National Science Foundation.
Gianchandani has had an illustrious career at NSF and accomplished enough in his mere decade and change in government to earn the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award in 2021.
Discover more about what brought the agency official to where he is now below and don’t miss the chance to talk to him and hear from him about how 5G is making a difference in research and citizen’s services at the 5G Summit! Check out the full lineup and save your spot at the hotly anticipated Feb. 27 event now.
Gianchandani’s Career Path
The Beginnings
Ever since his time at the University of Virginia in the 2000s—which culminated in a PhD in mechanical engineering—Gianchandani has been on the fast track to success. He burst onto the professional scene and was the first director of the Computing Community Consortium, where he was already extremely innovation-minded. The organization advises the computing research field on where to focus its efforts, on what areas are most forward-thinking. He joined NSF in 2012 as deputy director of its division of computer and network systems, before becoming deputy assistant director for computer and information science and engineering a few years later.
What Programs Has Gianchandani Led?
Gianchandani really cut his teeth at NSF helping to assemble and activate programs like Smart and Connected Communities, Civic Innovation Challenge, the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes and, relevant to the 5G Summit, Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research.
He also served a pair of terms as acting assistant director of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate—dubbed NSF CISE—wherein he was tasked with negotiating and administering a $1 billion yearly budget.
Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate
Perhaps Gianchandani’s greatest claim to flame thus far has been his involvement in standing up the Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate, a.k.a. NSF TIP. He presides at the helm of the enterprise, which was officially established in 2022, as assistant director.
“The end goal of this effort,” Gianchandani said at a conference, “is to really be able to advance key technologies to be able to address some of our pressing societal and geostrategic challenges, and also, to grow the workforce.”
Different than other research and development-focused agencies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, TIP is meant to create opportunities for citizens across the country to conduct meaningful technological work in fields ranging from artificial intelligence, to microelectronics, to biotechnology, to, yes, 5G and next-generation networks.
TIP is a function of the Regional Engines program and is prompting that endeavor to “invest per engine $160 million over 10 years,” per Gianchandani. “That is an order magnitude greater than the largest research grant than what the NSF has historically funded in research.”
Keynote at the 2025 5G Summit
Learn more about TIP funding and how you can partner with Gianchandani at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 5G Summit on Feb. 27 in Tysons Corner, Virginia. There will be ample time for Q&A and discourse, both with the vaunted government speakers and your peers and competitors from all of the top GovCon organizations in attendance. Join this informative event before it’s too late!
