Lubbock, Texas (January 31, 2020) – LEARN Board of Directors has selected Akbar Kara to
succeed Pankaj Shah as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective January 31, 2020.

Kara has served as LEARN’s only Chief Technology Officer since 2006. He has 26 years of direct
networking experience with campus, regional, and international networks supporting science
and discovery. Prior to LEARN, Kara served as Network Director at the Columbia University
Medical Center. Kara recently led and completed a $2M optical backbone upgrade of the entire
LEARN network and he also architected a regional collaboration strategy with the neighboring
states that reduces TCO for content delivery and other network services. Over the years, Kara
has served five times as WAN Transport Committee Chair for an International Super Computing
Conference. [Read full press release LEARN | NEWS]