Gian Paolo Balboni was born in Vercelli (Italy) in 1957, and received its degree in Physics (summa cum laude) in 1981 from University of Torino.

He has spent 25+ years working in Telecom Italia, with focus on R&D projects.
His professional interests has addressed several areas: digital switching systems, multiprocessor architectures, parallel computing,VLSI for telecommunications, packet switching networks, ATM switching systems, broadband networks, multimedia technologies and services, digital media.

For ten years up to 2002,  he has also been under contract with “Politecnico di  Torino”, to teach regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Telecommunications.

From 2002 to 2006 he has been working as Senior Program Manager, supervisioning projects for the deployment of new Digital Media services, including DTT, IPTV and DVB-H.

He is currently Head of Innovation Trends & Industrial Networking  in Strategy&Innovation area of Telecom Italia; from this position he monitors, from a techno-economic point of view, the evolution of network and services, and evaluates cross-industry convergent phenomena.
Dr. Balboni has published tens of technical papers in the area of parallel computing, VLSI for telecommunications, broadband switching systems, multimedia technologies, digital media. He co-authored two books (in Italian):  "ATM technology for high-speeds networks" (1992) , “DTT and interactive services” (2005).