Sylvia Lu, CEng, FRSA

This page contains my official biography, as well as some details on how best to contact me.

1. Biography

A chartered engineer and technologist, a non-executive director, advisor, and ambassador. Sylvia has over a decade of experience in the Telecoms industry for four mobile generations (2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G) and was recognized as one of the UK’s Top 50 Women in Engineering. Sylvia is a Fellow of RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce).

Sylvia is Head of Technology Strategy at u-blox, – a Swiss creator and global leader of wireless chipsets and modules, where she heads cellular technology strategy, global standards, and industry alliances.

Sylvia is an elected CW (Cambridge Wireless) Board Director since 2017 and was appointed to the Advisory Board of UK5G in 2018. She was appointed as Vice-chair of the UK5G International Working Group in 2019, and co-chair of UK5G Manufacturing WG, co-leading the development of the UK proposition and engagement plan with overseas government and industry sectors.

In 2020, Sylvia was elected to the Board of 5G-ACIA (5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation) to set strategic direction, and collaborate with key stakeholders to influence 5G development and deployment in line with industrial imperatives. She was re-elected for a second term in Dec 2022.

Sylvia operates on an international stage as a keynote speaker on 5G, emerging technologies, and global standards for a wide range of stakeholders (highlights incl. the House of Lords, Westminster eForum, United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union, Mobile World Congress, Ofcom, Financial Times Live, IET, IEEE), and contributes to industry magazines and journals, some of which have been translated into 7 languages with a global reach.

Sylvia was handpicked as an Ambassador for the Women of the Future programme; she inspires and empowers female engineers and future leaders as a role model, and through appearances and talks at schools and universities. She won several special recognition for her work on empowering future female trailblazers. Most recently, Sylvia was named in the prestigious Computer Weekly “Most Influential Women in the UK Tech” 2020 and 2021 list.

Sylvia is also an amateur artist and was recently awarded a Fellowship at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges for a better future for people.

Sylvia is an Executive MBA candidate at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School since Q3’2021, and a graduate student at Said Business School, University of Oxford.

Moderating Metaverse panel at 5G Techritory in Riga, Latvia, with panelists from Meta, Nokia, Cisco, and Qualcomm – 29th Nov 2022
Speaking at IEEE 5G++ Summit, Dresden “5G and Beyond for Industrial IoT”, 12 May 2022
Fireside chat at Mobile World Congress 2022 – 28 Feb 2022, Barcelona
Chair UK session at the 5G Techritory World Day: Accelerating and scaling the real benefits of 5G to the economy and society – Nov 23, 2021. Guest speaker included Minister Julia Lopez MP.
Sharing thoughts at Financial Times Live panel “Identifying disruption & investment opportunities in the growing 5G ecosystem”, online, 10th Dec 2020
Sharing thoughts at 5G Techritory Forum – panel on “1st year of 5G: the chip designers view”, online, 11th Nov 2020
Sharing thoughts on the barriers to tackle for the next stage of 5G rollout in the UK, at Westminster eForum, London, UK (Jan 2020)
Invited to speak at the Mobile World Congress, MWC 2019 in Los Angeles, US
Session on: IoT in Manufacturing: Automation, Optimization, and Robots.
Speaking at the panel – Mobile World Congress, MWC2019 in Los Angeles, US;
Session on: IoT in Manufacturing: Automation, Optimization, and Robots.
 Initiated and signed an MoU with 5G-ACIA on behalf of UK5G to shape the future of 5G for Industrial 4.0
UK5G Advisory Board meeting @RIBA London on 16th of Oct, 2018
Speaking at ITU on licensing practices for industry segments (Jan 2019, Geneva, Switzerland)
Invited to judge SyncTheCity startup finalists, Nov 2019, Norwich, UK
Speaking at the House of Lords, Nov 2018, London, UK
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of IET Engineering the Future of Communications series.
UK Top 50 Women in Engineering 2019, featured in the Guardian
Sylvia was recognised as UK’s Top 50 Women in Engineering by the Women Engineering Society and was featured in the Guardian newspaper.

Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2018 Finalist
Sylvia was nominated as Asian Women of Achievement Awards finalist in the Science and Technology Category, an award to recognise and celebrate the phenomenal Asian women across the UK and across industries, who are making a valuable and important contribution to British life.

2. Contact

The best way to contact me is as follows: