Joe Kochan most recently served as the CEO and co-founder of US Ignite, responsible for leading
the organization in its mission to accelerate the smart community movement as a high-tech, highimpact nonprofit. He was also Principal Investigator and Project Director for the Platforms for
Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) Project Office (PPO), a $100 million program funded by
the National Science Foundation and a consortium of more than 35 wireless companies and
associations. He continues to serve as a volunteer on US Ignite’s board of directors.
Prior to US Ignite, Joe worked as federal program officer in the Department of Commerce’s BTOP
grant program. Before that, he was a co-founder and Vice President–Operations at DigitalBridge
Communications (DBC), a Virginia-based startup dedicated to bringing broadband wireless
services to small, underserved markets nationwide. Joe is an alumnus of Princeton University and
lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two sons.