Now in it’s 17th year the Market Focus theatre has become one of the highlights of the ECOC Exhibition attracting the world’s best speakers from industry globally.
Every year the Market Focus is a focal point of the show and has become a key event to get up-to-date knowledge from across the industry in key technical areas and discover the latest commercial trends in optical communications.
2023 Call for Speakers closing soon!
The 2023 Market Focus Call for Speakers is closing soon – submit your abstracts by 13th June.
Deadline for speaker abstracts – Tuesday 13th June
We have streamlined our Market Focus sessions to cover the whole value chain of technologies from optical components to optical network providers that span both telecommunications as well as data centre / data communication media services. The Market Focus sessions for 2023 are divided into 5 categories with a session of 2 panels.
Download the Call for Speakers flyer for full details on this year’s topic areas.
If you are interested in speaking at the ECOC Exhibition Market Focus theatre please complete the online form to submit a 100-word summary of your presentation theme with a title based on one of the topic areas, using the link below.
Submit your speaker proposal online here
Further details on each category
Service providers/media/social companies
1. Impact of social and media on the internet/network
2. State of the optical transport markets (metro, long haul, submarine) and OTN trends
3. Transmission roadmaps (route to 100s Tbps and associated MSAs/standards efforts)
4. Energy Efficient Ethernet and green datacenters
5. Power impact of co-packaging (CPO) vs. pluggableplatforms
6. Scaling capacity and growth with DWDM superchannels
7. OTN Design & planning software
8. Embedded network monitoring, testing, anddiagnostics
9. Intersatellite communication
Networking/systems/DC/
disaggregatedsolutions/software
1. Fibre access (5G) and next generation 6G/7Gsystems
2. Operator business models (regulation, standards,installation, mgt etc.)
3. High speed PON and FTTX solutions (cables,antennas, coherent etc.)
4. Future trends for server/switch designs andarchitectures in the datacenter
5. Network architectures and wavelength routing and gridless architectures
6. Colourless, directionless, contentionless ROADM networks
7. Network automation and SDN standards/industry groups
8. Network disaggregation: Open terminals, Optical Line Systems, white boxes
Modules/sub-systems/connectors/line-cards
1. Advanced fiber-based connector/interfaces/panels
2. Competitive modules for WDM / high-speed PON
3. PIC based transceivers (pluggable and co-packaged/ CPO)
4. Architecture trends for line cards, faceplate, rack data throughput
5. Intelligent sensors/sensing using fiber communications
6. Agile transceivers (data rate, wavelength, modulation scheme, coherent/coherent-lite, FEC, etc.)
7. Embedded optics/waveguides in pcbs and associated interposers
8. Chip-to-chip communications (fiber and/or optical wireless)Integrated (Black Box) vs. Disaggregated platforms
9. White box networking architectures/trends/ technology platforms
Components/ICs/PICs/fiber
1. Classic component performance (discrete and integrated photonics), ROADMs
2. High speed, low power modulators (polymer, TFLN, plasmonic, Silicon, InP etc.)
3. Tunable and fixed wavelength devices
4. Future PIC trends, roadmaps, complexity with InP, silicon photonics, polymers
5. VCSELs: high speed, arrays, smart pixels
6. Electronics (and associated modulation techniques – PAM, QPSK, QAM etc.) for lightwave (DSPs, ASICs, computational processing)
7. Advanced packaging trends (low cost, high speed, volume driven, CoB, FC, interposers) and associated testing techniques
New and emerging technologies
1. 3D structured light and sensing
2. Transportation, remote, and distributed sensing
3. Optical radars or lidar
4. Bio-medical applications
5. POF (Plastic optical fibre) cabling/interconnect applications/testing
6. Satellite and free space optics
7. Automotive (LIDAR) sensing optics, beam steering, phased array optics
8. Ultra-short (<10m) distance data communications, AOC and parallel optics
9. Projection optics (home and cinema/conference applications)
10. Novel PICs and photonic devices/materials and platforms
11. Optical switching materials/components
2 roundtables/panels
1. The race decrease power consumption in the network
2. Pluggable optics vs co-packaging for 104Tbps+ and beyond platforms)
ECOC Exhibition Market Focus Advisory Committee
Our advisory committee is composed of industry experts who will be reviewing submitted
abstracts to plan another exciting live and in-person market focus event in Glasgow 2023.
Chaired by Michael Lebby from Lightwave Logic, the highly industrial and commercially experienced committee includes: Pierpaolo Ghiggino Industry Consultant, Wladek Forysiak of Aston University, Stephan Neidlinger from ADVA, Daryl Inniss from OFS,
Glenn Wellbrock from Verizon, Frank Chang from Source Photonics, 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.
Karen Liu
Karen Liu is currently at Nubis Communications, Inc. Previously she was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Lightwave Logic, Inc.and Kaiam Corp. As Principal Analyst at Ovum/Informa/RHK she covered markets as an industry analyst and advised vendors of advanced optical components and a broad range of other emerging technologies. Dr. Liu initially moved from technical R&D to Marketing at Tellabs in order to introduce customers to the then-new approach of DWDM optical networking. She was involved in architecting the first optical networking products and their required components at Tellabs and IBM. She received a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in the field of fiber optics, and a BSE in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University.
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.
Dr. Stephan Neidlinger
Dr. Stephan Neidlinger joined ADVA, now part of Adtran, 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.
"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