Weekly Seminar: “European Industry in Photonics, the Consortium”

ABSTRACT:

Photonics will be crucial for the next industrial revolution as it will be the core technology for faster and cheaper devices that will offer an improved performance. In the next years, new products related to healthcare, telecom and datacom, and environmental will impact our daily life allowing amazing functionalities and increasing our quality of life.

The European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) is the industry association that represents more than 370 companies and organizations in the field of photonics. The major objective of EPIC is to assure that Europe remains a key player in the future manufacturing of photonic based products.  EPIC companies cover the entire value chain, from software developers and component manufactures to system integrators, and all kind of applications from photovoltaic, lighting, lasers for medical and industrial applications, display and imaging technology, and optical fibers for optical telecommunication. The role of EPIC is to connect all these companies by organizing workshops focused on a technology and oriented to the business, networking events, and by attending the main photonics and non-photonics conferences. EPIC also helps to lower the barrier from the technology development to the market supporting new start-ups (usually university spin-offs) such as the organization of events with investors. Furthermore, we are also participating in European Projects as dissemination partner and supporting the Commission in bringing photonic technologies to the general public.

SPEAKER:

Ana González is currently R&D Manager at EPIC (European Photonics Industry Consortium). Her expertise relies on the development of systems based on integrated photonic circuits, packaging and assembly, and the investigation of applications such as chemical/biological sensing and Datacom. In addition, she has been involved in technology transfer and business development processes. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University Autonomous of Barcelona (UAB) and her PhD degree from the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2).