The competition invites engineers to use the characteristics of Photonic ICs (PICs) to advance fields like healthcare, autonomous vehicles, AI and agriculture by enabling advanced sensors for earlier diagnostics, safer infrastructure, more efficient food production and segments which have not yet been thought of.
The contest is backed by a €60 million fund from PhotonDelta. By offering favourable loans to pre-seed companies, the fund supports entrepreneurs and researchers in turning their ideas into viable businesses.
This initiative aims to foster innovation at the earliest stages, encouraging the development of new technologies and applications that can shape the future of the PIC ecosystem.
The winner will receive €50,000 worth of services to bring their idea to life as well as global exposure at an industry event. On top of that, participating in this challenge will provide the unique opportunity to position the company for raising a favorable loan of up to €2 million by PhotonDelta.
The contest is held in collaboration with engineering community and knowledge platform Wevolver, and supported by imec, SMART Photonics, LioniX International, Bright Photonics, Epiphany and PHIX Photonics Assembly.
“We will provide the winner with significant support to get their ideas off the drawing board and into production,” says PhotoDelta CEO Eelko Brinkhof.
The Global Photonics Engineering Contest is open to startups, established companies, engineers, researchers, students, and academic organizations working on innovative photonic chip applications.
The contest is being launched at PIC Summit 2024 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands on October 15th. Submissions will be open until the 3rd March 2025 with the winner and runners up announced on the 2nd April 2025.
Contest entries will be judged on the level of innovation, technical and commercial feasibility, and how effectively the design addresses current industry challenges. Participants are required to submit detailed descriptions of their projects, including team information and supporting visuals or videos. A jury panel of experts from the integrated photonics industry will review the submissions, with the winners announced on 8th April 2025.
For more information and contest details, click here.
