The article discusses the highlights of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Symposium on New Frontiers in Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DySPAN 2011) held in Aachen, Germany, from May 3 to 6, 2011. The conference was attended by hundreds of international experts who addressed the challenge of delivering dynamic spectrum access (DSA) technologies. The event also included a series of lectures on topics such as cognitive wireless networking with WARP and advanced antennas for cognitive radio.