Steve West

Steve is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Cyan, a provider of packet-optical networking solutions for wholesale, regional and metropolitan networks. Steve’s 30 years of product development experience includes industrial and telecom semiconductors, hardware, software and systems. Cyan is located in beautiful Sonoma County California, an area with a storied history in the networking technology industry. Steve’s technology focus is the challenge created by the convergence of packet and optical networking. Network operators are faced with an expanding array of old and new technology options, including ROADM, OTN, Ethernet, PBB, and MPLS-TP variants. The complexity of technology choice is compounded by the innovator’s dilemma prioritizing investment in new packet-optical solutions versus sustaining old SONET/SDH and IP/MPLS equipment. Steve’s mission is to develop hardware and software that tame this complexity and simplify the transition. Steve has B.Sc and M.Sc Electrical Engineering degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa.