Fàilte!
I am in St Andrews, Scotland, for the 2018 Summer School in Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Photonics. The school is organised by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Applied Photonics and is hosting an impressive list of experts from many branches of the photonics sector. I look forward to gaining some varied perspectives on drivers and lessons learnt in photonics-driven technological innovation.
Why the need for such a summer school for postgraduate and early-career professionals? The organisers have described the motivations very succinctly:
The worldwide photonics market is worth $150 billion. Graduate schools around the world are producing excellent photonics researchers, but achieving sustainable economic impact makes it important to stimulate a spirit of enterprise, technology transfer, innovation and entrepreneurship in this community of early career researchers.
The attendees will likely be postgraduate researchers and early-career professionals, and it will be a great opportunity to meet to discuss their work in photonics and applications in industry and academia.
As part of the summer school I will also present work in the development of integrated waveguides and gratings for integrated optical gyroscopes for potential applications in navigational systems, which has stemmed from work in my PhD and an international collaboration with researchers from Zhejiang University in China (as described in a previous post). I am also excited to be exploring an idea I have for a consultancy service to improve the “STEM fluency” in public and private organisations wanting to make more efficient Impact in their work in their local community.
I wish to take the opportunity to thank the organising committee for awarding me a bursary to have the privilege of attending this summer school. More to follow in the coming days, so make sure that you subscribe to my updates from the website!