Dr. Sokwoo Rhee is Executive Vice President at LG Electronics and Head of North America Innovation Center (“LG Nova”) in Silicon Valley. He leads LG Electronics’ global innovation activities, new business creation, strategic partnerships, and ecosystem development.

Before joining LG Electronics, he was Associate Director for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) Innovation at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce, covering innovation programs for Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities. He managed Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC), a U.S. federal government program to develop a global ecosystem of major business and technology stakeholders to create replicable and scalable IoT/smart city projects.

He previously served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow on CPS, a program by the White House. During his tenure, he co-led the SmartAmerica Challenge, which brought together IoT technologies and organizations across the nation to demonstrate how they can collaborate to create IoT projects with the focus on socio-economic benefits.

Prior to joining the US government, he was a co-founder and CTO of Millennial Net, Inc., one of the first to successfully commercialize low-power wireless mesh/sensor network and IoT technologies from academia. The company raised multiple rounds of VC funding before being acquired by a leading factory automation company. He also worked on wireless medical sensors as a research associate at MIT.

His work and achievements have been recognized through multiple awards including MIT Technology Review’s Top Innovators under 35. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.