More than 300 members attended Photonics21 Annual Meeting 2008

This year's Photonics21 Annual Meeting, a successful event with interesting and promising discussions ended at the evening of December 9th at the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Brussels, Belgium.
The Board of Stakeholders elected Giorgio Anania, Chairman of Cube Optics AG, as a third vice-president, Eckhard Meiners, Managing Director of TRUMPF Laser Marking Systems AG, as the new chair of workgroup 2, following Peter Leibinger who stepped down as chair of WG 2 and finally Klaas Vegter, Chief Technology Officer Philips Lighting, as new chair of Workgroup 4, following Peter Stromberg, who as well resigned.

Five new members have been elected to the Board of Stakeholders: Hans-Joachim Grallert, Professor for Telecommunications at the Technical University of Berlin, Eckhard Meiners, Managing Director of TRUMPF Laser Marking Systems AG, Jürgen Popp, Scientific Director at the Institute of Photonic Technology Jena, Klaas Vegter, Chief Technology Officer Philips Lighting and Berit Wessler, Head of the Innovations Management at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors.

At the evening reception 300 members - many of them in high positions of photonics companies and institutes - met in a convenient atmosphere and had time to network and discuss.

Day two started with the opening by EU-Commissioner Viviane Reding, responsible for information, society and media. She underlined that Photonics is one of the principal motors of growth and driver of efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector and one of the means of raising the quality of life of our citizens. To further improve the political support she invited the members of Photonics 21 to submit fitting proposals for the FP7 Programme and the future FP8 Programme to guarantee that this economic relevant sector is and will be well considered in those funding programmes.

Malcolm Harbour, Member of the European Parliament, welcomed the foundation of European technology platforms per se and sees Photonics21 as a very good example for a successful established ETP with great involvement and enormous interest in interactions. It will be one of his aims to further increase the European budget for research & development in the photonics sector.

OITDA (Optoelectronic Industry and technology development association) chief manager Kimio Tatsuno pointed out the development potential and the importance of the photonics industry for the future. He demonstrated impressively that the photonics market in Japan keeps growing in a green digital economy with new service creation due to the global warming issue.

After splitting up work groups, the Photonics21 members met in the afternoon to discuss the strategy for 2009. The outcome of these workgroup sessions will be published soon on Photonics21 website.

The presentations held at the Annual Meeting are now available at the Photonics21 homepage.