Market Focus
The ECOC Market Focus has grown over the past 15 years to become one of the focal points of the show and a popular platform to gain industry knowledge and insight into the latest technologies available.
Covering everything from datacentres, photonics integrations and digital silicon photonics to fibre access, service and content provide optical transmission, Market Focus, sponsored by Marvell, showcases the very latest news and developments from leading organisations within the fibre optics community.
Catch up on the sessions from 2021 at the Virtual Catch Up
We are pleased to share the full speaker line-up and session details for this year’s Market Focus. Hear from companies including Intel, Corning, Marvell, Lightwave Logic, Arista, OIF, Infinera, II-VI and lots more!
View the full Market Focus Timetable 2021 Full session details
Market Focus in 2022
The Call for Speakers for Market Focus in 2022. Sign up to receive email updates and be the first to know what the hot topics for 2022 will be and hear when the Call for Speakers opens.
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Watch our interview with Michael Lebby, Chair of the Market Focus Committee as he discusses the plans for this years sessions
"Market Focus sessions were very informative and on the edge .... the best attended part of the show in my eyes and one that got a lot of discussion afterwards"
Exhibition Visitor
ECOC Exhibition Market Focus Advisory Committee
We are delighted to welcome back the industry experts who make up the ECOC Advisory Committee. The Committee is the decision-making force behind the presentation selection process and includes representatives from across the optical communications space – telecom operators, system vendors and component manufacturers to industry analyst groups and independent industry bodies.
The experienced Committee includes: Pierpaolo Ghiggino of NIS Ltd, Wladek Forysiak of Aston University, Stephan Neidlinger from ADVA Optical Networking, Michael Lebby from Lightwave Logic, Daryl Inniss from OFS, Glenn Wellbrock from Verizon, Frank Chang from Source Photonics, industry expert Bimal Nayar, from Network Rail and Bill Ring from Voyant Photonics.
Michael S. Lebby - Committee Chairman
Michael S. Lebby joined Lightwave Logic as a member of the Board of Directors in 2015. In May 2018, Dr. Lebby assumed the role of CEO, Lightwave Logic Inc (LWLG:OTCQB) Dr. Lebby (born 1961, London, UK) is an Anglo-American entrepreneur and intrapreneur in the fields of optoelectronics/photonics electronics and semiconductors. Dr. Lebby’s career started with the British Government in 1977 in telecommunications and he did research at their research labs (RSRE Malvern) in the early 1980s. Dr. Lebby worked at AT&T’s research labs: Bell Labs (1985-1989) in photonics, and subsequently drove the development (and co-authored the first patent) of the oxide VCSEL diode laser at Motorola in the 1990s (which is now used in laser mice, 3D sensing/FaceID in mobile phones, optical interconnects; where volumes of the laser are over 1B units today). From 2005-2010 he led the USA trade association in optoelectronics (OIDA) and represented the optoelectronics and photonics industry on Capitol Hill. Dr. Lebby has run technical start-ups and commercialized optoelectronic and photonics technology into volume manufacturing. He is currently a technical expert to the European Commission. He is a Fellow member of IEEE and OSA, and has been voted PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit) business leader of the year by the PIC International Conference in 2018. Dr. Lebby holds over 450 issued international patents in photonics and electronics, that have been derived from over 200 issued USPTO utility patents, mostly in the field of optoelectronics, photonics and semiconductors. He has been cited by the USPTO to be in the most prolific 75 inventors in USA from 1988-1997.
Wladek Forysiak
Wladek Forysiak is a Reader and Deputy Director of AIPT at Aston University. He holds a PhD in laser physics and has a research background in nonlinear photonics and high speed optical fibre communication systems. He was a co-founder of Marconi Solstis in 2000, and spent 15 years in WDM system related product development with Marconi, Ericsson, and Oclaro. A Royal Society Industry Fellow from 2012-16, he was awarded a 5-year EPSRC Manufacturing Fellowship at Aston University in 2015. His current research interests are in wideband optical fibre communication systems, optical devices and subsystems, and the impact and mitigation of device and fibre nonlinearities.
Dott. Ing. Pierpaolo Ghiggino, CEng, FIET
He received his doctorate degree in Electronic Engineering (Cum Laude) from the University of Pavia, Italy in 1984. He served as Lieutenant in the Surface to Air Missile NATO Forces in North East Italy. He then joined GEC-Marconi SpA working on advanced optical devices and optical networks, often together with the GEC-Hirst Research Centre of the UK, where he later co-ordinated two research groups seconded to Marconi SpA. He brought the Company optical amplifier technology from its initial research to production. He then directed the R&D Photonics Laboratories of Marconi SpA in Genova, which developed the first generation DWDM technology of the GEC group. As GPT and Marconi SpA merged within GEC-Marconi he moved back to the U.K., later becoming an Executive of the newly formed Marconi Communication plc. He ran the Photonics Networks Strategy and SDA groups and helped the Optical Network Business Unit to become a market leader in DWDM networks. As VP of Central Research of Marconi Corporation plc., he then helped to form the optical research complex in Pisa, together with the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. He also worked with the Centre of Advanced Photonics and Electronics of the University of Cambridge in the UK. At Ericsson he formed the group Research Branch in Italy. From 2010 he is a Private Industry Consultant, also helping to form and establish new start-ups. He was professor of Optical Communications at Parma University and lectured at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa.
Bimal Nayar
Bimal Nayar is a Senior Innovation Engineer with Network Rail Telecom and is responsible for strategy and innovation activities in communications systems and sensing. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College of Science and Technology, and has extensive experience in communication technologies and systems. He has previously worked at British Telecom Research Labs (UK), Central Research Department Du Pont (Wilmington, USA), Indian Institute of Technology (Mumbai, India), GEC Marconi Materials Technology (Caswell, UK), Marconi plc (UK), Ericsson (UK), Oclaro (UK), and II-VI (UK) in various R&D and management roles. He is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the IET, Senior Member of the IEEE and a Visiting Lecturer at Aston University. He has published over 60 papers and holds 3 patents.
Dr. Stephan Neidlinger
Dr. Stephan Neidlinger joined ADVA in 2008 and plays a key role in promoting and shaping the company’s innovative open connectivity solutions. As Vice President, Global Business Development, Stephan is responsible for developing ADVA’s network management systems and SDN business, managing strategic alliance partners, effectively positioning joint solutions in the marketplace and to the company’s customer base. Stephan is one of the founding members of the WDM PON Forum, member of ECOC Advisory Committee, participating in CableLabs’ working group and TIP OOPT subgroup co-chair. Prior to joining ADVA Optical Networking, Stephan acquired extensive telecommunications experience, working for more than 16 years at Siemens (now part of Nokia). During Stephan’s tenure there, he held a number of research, development, business and product line management positions. He worked extensively on the development of a range of networking technologies, including fiber-in-the-loop, hybrid fiber coax, twisted pair, metro and backbone DWDM systems and Passive Optical Networks (PONs). Stephan earned a master’s degree and doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, where he conducted research into coherent optical transmission systems.
Glenn Wellbrock
Glenn Wellbrock is the director of optical transport network architecture, design and planning at Verizon, where he is responsible for the development and deployment of new technologies for both the metro and long haul transport infrastructure. Prior to this position, Wellbrock ran the advanced technology lab, established evaluation criteria and set engineering guidelines for all backbone transport equipment as well as various positions within network operations. In addition to his more than 20 years at Verizon (1984-2001 and 2004-present), Wellbrock was responsible for product architecture within the U.S. optical networks group at Marconi and product planning at Qplus Networks with a specific focus on developing alternative modulation techniques.
Daryl Inniss
Daryl Inniss is Director, New Business Development at OFS. He was formerly Components Practice Leader at market research firm Ovum and RHK and recently co-authored Silicon Photonics (Morgan Kaufmann, 2016). Daryl has been in the telecom industry for over 30 years. He was Technical Manager at JDSU and Lucent Technologies, Bell Laboratories. Daryl started his career as a Member of the Technical Staff, AT&T Bell Labs and holds a PhD in Chemistry from UCLA and an AB from Princeton University.
Frank Chang
Frank Chang is an expert of photonic IC technologies, optics transceivers and optical networking, and currently is employed as Chief Engineer for transceiver design at Source Photonics in West Hills of Los Angeles area. Previously he was senior Principle Engineer for Optics Interconnect at CTO Optics Office of Inphi Corp for over 5 years after 12 years’ service at Vitesse Semiconductors. He also held various project and management positions with Cisco/Pirelli, JDS Uniphase etc for working on the design, development, and commercialization of fiber optics components.
Bill Ring
Dr. William S. Ring is an expert in optical communications and semiconductors. Bill gained his PhD at Surrey University, where he studied strained semiconductor lasers. After completing his PhD in 1992 he moved to Ireland to work for Optronics Ireland in Dublin. In 1994 he moved back to the UK joining Hewlett Packard. During his tenure at Hewlett Packard, he was a principal engineer in III-V semiconductors working on FP, DFB and pump lasers. While at HP he was responsible for the design, development and introduction of the first strained MQW laser device for HP’s 1300nm transceiver product line. In 1999, he moved to the USA where he joined AMP Incorporated before it was acquired by Tyco International. From 1999 to 2005, he worked in both Operations and Development. He held several roles including, Director of Operations and Director of Development during this period. In 2005 he started a consulting business and worked with multiple clients in the field of Defense, Communications and Solar Energy. As part of his consultancy work with the Optoelectronics Industry Association (Washington DC) he organized multiple workshops and published reports on different technologies and markets. In 2010, he became COO and subsequently CTO of Solar Systems in Melbourne, Australia. The company was focused on concentrated solar technology using multi-junction solar cells. In 2014 he decided to start BB Photonics. The company concentrated on the development of a low cost Embedded Dielectric Technology for photonic integrated circuits. Bill sold the company to Poet Technologies in 2016. At BB Photonics, Bill developed low optical loss and low stress dielectric technology, which is the foundation for the Poet Interposer platform. Since March 2020 he has been involved with LIDAR and leads the laser and semiconductor amplifier development at Voyant Photonics, a small silicon photonics start up.
Per Danielsen (1955 – 2019)
Committee Chairman
We sadly lost an exceptional person and great friend. Per has been the main driver behind this very forum; an idea that grew from humble beginnings in 2006 to what is now one of the most exciting market meeting of the Industry and a key feature of one of the most important Optical Technology Conferences and Exhibitions in the world. Market Focus exists thanks to his vision, technological competence, dedication and drive. He will be greatly missed.
Highlights from Market Focus 2019
Market Focus Presentations 2019
Some of the excellent presentations from across the three days of the event are now available to download.
Please note: not all presentations will be available due to author permissions. We are awaiting approval to publish some of the remaining presentations, so if there are any specific sessions you are waiting for please do contact the Marketing Team and we will endeavor to obtain these as soon as we can.
Download the Market Focus presentations