Short Bio  |  Activities  |  Patents  |  Publications  |  Lectures

Welcome to Thorsten Kramp’s Homepage

I’m an Engineering Manager SRE at Google Zurich, Switzerland.

SHORT BIO

Dr. Thorsten Kramp is an Engineering Manager SRE at Google Zurich, Switzerland, with almost 20 years of professional experience. He received an MSc and a PhD in computer science from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, and is the author of 20+ reviewed publications and 10 international patents. In addition, Thorsten co-invented and co-authored the LoRaWAN Link-Layer Specification 1.0 which led to the founding of the LoRa Alliance in March 2015. As of today, the LoRa Alliance has more than 500 members worldwide including technology leaders from many industries.

Before joining Google, Thorsten was a Senior Director Engineering at Semtech International AG, Switzerland. At Semtech, Thorsten was responsible for the strategy, development, and launch of Semtech’s LoRa Cloud services and LoRa Basics open-source portfolio. During his time at Semtech, Thorsten also served as Technical Committee Co-chair of the LoRa Alliance. Under his stewardship the LoRaWAN Specification L2 1.0.4 has been published as stable long-term release.

Prior to Semtech, Thorsten was Co-founder and CTO of TrackNet / Trackio, California (USA) and Switzerland, a company that had focused on low-power, long-range solutions for the Internet of Things based on LoRa radio technology by Semtech and the LoRaWAN protocol specification by the LoRa Alliance. He also served as President of the Board of Directors of TrackNet Inc., and as Managing Director of both Trackio International AG and Trackio GmbH. From Summer 2017 until Autumn 2018, Thorsten further served as President of the Board of Directors of ZENNER Connect, Switzerland. Semtech acquired TrackNet / Trackio in August 2018.

Before founding TrackNet / Trackio, Thorsten was a researcher and Master Inventor at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Switzerland. At IBM Research, Thorsten was working on smartcard operating systems, applied security, networking, sensor networks, and machine-to-machine (M2M) infrastructure solutions. His roles span from nuts-and-bolts engineering to technical project management to strategic business development. Most notable are his contributions to the IBM JCOP JavaCard OpenPlatform operating system for smartcards, the IBM Mote Runner run-time platform and development environment for wireless sensor networks, and eventually the IBM Long Range Signaling and Control (LRSC) system, IBM’s carrier-grade network management solution for large-scale (country-wide) deployments of public or private LoRa-based network infrastructure for which he had full responsibility.

Between 2004 and 2011, Thorsten was also teaching courses on JavaCard and embedded systems design at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

Since 2019
Engineering Manager SRE at Google Zurich, Switzerland
2018 – 2019
Senior Director Engineering at Semtech International, Switzerland.
2018 – 2019
Co-chair Technical Committee of the LoRa Alliance.
2017 – 2018
President Board of Directors at ZENNER Connect, Switzerland.
2016 – 2018
Co-founder and CTO of TrackNet / Trackio, California (USA) and Switzerland.
2011 – 2016
Master Inventor at IBM Research, Switzerland.
2001 – 2016
Research Staff Member at IBM Research, Switzerland.
1996 – 2001
Research Assistant at the University of Kaiserslautern, Department of Computer Science, Germany.

US PATENTS

  1. Secure PIN management of a user trusted device. 8,423,783
  2. System and method of performing electronic transactions with encrypted data transmission. 8,601,256
  3. Authorization of server operations. 8,640,255
  4. Secure online banking transaction apparatus and method. 8,799,171
  5. Authorization of server operations. 8,856,919
  6. Authentication of data communications. 8,990,912
  7. Mobile touch-generating device and communication with a touchscreen. 9,041,668
  8. Distribution of credentials. 9,112,680
  9. Method, secure device, system and computer program product for securely managing user access to a file system. 9,152,815
  10. Privacy-preserving message blinding. WO2018156206A1

REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

  1. T. Kramp and R. Koster. A Service-Centred Approach to QoS-Supporting Middleware. Work-in-Progress Paper, Middleware ’98 (IFIP International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open Distributed Processing), September 15–18, 1998.
  2. T. Kramp and R. Koster. Flexible Event-Based Threading for QoS-Supporting Middleware. Proceedings of the Second IFIP WG 6.1 International Working Conference on Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems (DAIS), June 28-July 1, 1999.
  3. L. Baum and T. Kramp. Towards a Uniform Modeling Technique for Resource-Usage Scenarios. Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA), June 28-July 2, 1999.
  4. R. Koster and T. Kramp. Structuring QoS-Supporting Services with Smart Proxies. Proceedings of Middleware 2000 (IFIP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open Distributed Processing), April 4–8, 2000.
  5. T. Kramp, M. Adrian, and R. Koster. An Open Framework for Real-Time Scheduling Simulation. Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Real-Time Systems (WPDRTS), May 1–2, 2000.
  6. T. Kramp and R. Koster. Descriptive-Procedural Configuration of Communication Bindings. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME), July 30-August 2, 2000.
  7. R. Koster and T. Kramp. Loadable Smart Proxies and Native-Code Shipping for CORBA. Proceedings of the Third IFIP/GI International Conference on Trends towards a Universal Service Market (USM), September 12–14, 2000.
  8. T. Kramp and G. Coulson. The Design of a Flexible Communications Framework for Next-Generation Middleware. Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Distributed Objects and Applications (DOA), September 21–23, 2000.
  9. R. Koster and T. Kramp. A Multithreading Platform for Multimedia Applications. Proceedings of Multimedia Computing and Networking (MMCN), January 22–24, 2001.
  10. R. Koster and T. Kramp. Real-Time Support on Top of Ethernet. Proceedings of Kommunikation in verteilten Systemen (KiVS), February 20–23, 2001.
  11. R. Koster and T. Kramp. Using Message-Based Threading for Multimedia Applications. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME), August 22–25, 2001.
  12. T. Kramp. Flexible Run-Time Support for Real-Time Computing. PhD Thesis, University of Kaiserslautern, Shaker Verlag, June 2001.
  13. A. Hiltgen, T. Kramp, T. Weigold. Secure Internet Banking Authentication. IEEE Security and Privacy, 4(2):21–29, March/April 2006.
  14. T. Weigold, T. Kramp, P. Buhler. ePVM: An Embeddable Process Virtual Machine. 31st Annual IEEE International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC), July 23–27, 2007.
  15. T. Weigold, T. Kramp, R. Hermann, F. Höring, P. Buhler, M. Baentsch. The Zurich Trusted Information Channel – An Efficient Defence Against Man-in-the-Middle and Malicious Software Attacks. TRUST Conference, March 11–12, 2008.
  16. M. Baentsch, P. Buhler, R. Hermann, F. Höring, T. Kramp, T. Weigold. A Banking Server’s Display on Your Key Chain. ERCIM News, Number 73, pp. 44–45, April 2008.
  17. T. Weigold, T. Kramp, M. Baentsch. Remote Client Authentication. IEEE Security and Privacy, 6(4):36–43, July/August, 2008.
  18. T. Kramp, M. Baentsch, T. Eirich, M. Oestreicher, I. Romanov, A. Caracas. The IBM Mote Runner. ERCIM news, Number 76, page 20, January 2009.
  19. A. Caracas, T. Kramp, M. Baentsch, M. Oestreicher, T. Eirich, I. Romanov. Mote Runner: A Multi-Language Virtual Machine for Small Embedded Devices. Third International Conference on Sensor Technologies and Applications (SENSORCOMM), June 18–23, 2009.
  20. T. Weigold, P. Buhler, T. Kramp. Flexible Persistence Support for State Machine based Workflow Engines. Fourth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA), September 20–25, 2009.
  21. A. Caracas, C. Lombriser, Y.-A. Pignolet, T. Kramp, T. Eirich, R. Adelsberger, U. Hunkeler. Energy-Efficiency Through Micro-Managing Communication and Optimizing Sleep. Eighth Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh, and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON), June 27–30, 2011.
  22. A. Caracas, T. Kramp. On the Expressiveness of BPMN for Modeling Wireless Sensor Networks Applications. Third International Workshop on the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), November 21, 2011.
  23. A. Bassi, M. Bauer, M. Fiedler, T. Kramp, R. van Kranenburg, S. Lange, S. Meissner (editors). Enabling Things to Talk – Designing IoT Solutions with the IoT Architectural Reference Model. Springer, 2013.
  24. N. Sornin, T. Kramp, T. Eirich, O. Hersent. LoRaWAN™ Specification 1.0. LoRa Alliance, January 2015.
  25. T. Kramp (editor). LoRaWAN™ Specification 1.0.4. LoRa Alliance, January 2020.

LECTURES

2010 – 2011
System Design for Wireless Sensor Networks. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Department of Computer Science / Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Switzerland.
2004 – 2007
Smart Cards: Towards a Modern Run-Time Platform. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Department of Computer Science / Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Switzerland.
1999 – 2000
Die Netzplattform CORBA. University of Kaiserslautern, Department of Computer Science, Germany.