From Bits to Profit&Loss: the Physical Layer of Business

04 Giugno 2026
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Mario Di Dio, Helium (United States)

Thursday June 4th, 2026 - 15.00-16.00
DII Meeting Room, Ground Floor, Via Caruso 16 Pisa

Abstract:
This talk retraces the path from a PhD in software-defined radio, earned in this department, through co-founding a startup, the move into management, and ultimately the role of CEO at Helium. It's the climb engineers are warned about: from the bits, where you can debug your way to truth, up to the profit&loss (P&L), where the variables are people, capital, and markets. But business has its own physical layer, hard constraints no strategy can abstract away. The talk covers what the engineering mindset carries upward intact, and what has to be re-encoded entirely.

Biography:
Mario Di Dio is the Chief Executive Officer at Helium, overseeing the business and technology development of network products that contribute to the Helium network, a global Wi-Fi offload network for carriers. With a focus on communication standards like LTE, 5G, and Wi-Fi, Mario works to enhance end-user connectivity experiences and increase network efficiency via Helium's distributed network deployment model. Before joining Helium, Mario was VP of Software and Network Technology at CableLabs, where he was responsible for leading the development of new technologies that became part of the global cable industry's wired and wireless network infrastructures. Before that, he was a Principal Engineer at Artemis Networks, where he co-founded one of the first commercial SDR platforms for cell-free distributed massive MIMO called pCell. Mario holds a BSc in Engineering, an MSc in Engineering, a PhD in telecommunications engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy, and an Executive Master in Business Administration from the University of Denver. He is author of several scientific papers and he holds multiple patents issued in the US and abroad.