Industrial engagement
Exhibitions Our 2018 industrial engagement strategy elected to prioritise expanding the Hub’s national reach, consolidating our central role within the UK photonics community and further targeting UK manufacturing industries which stand to benefit from photonics-enabled solutions. To increase and sustain our interactions with these key stakeholders, the Hub showcased its technologies at six national exhibitions and industry showcases, two in each quarter of the year. These included the KTN’s Emerging Technologies Showcase (London), Farnborough Airshow and Innovation South (both Farnborough), Photonex photonics trade show (Coventry), and the Materials Research Exchange (London) and Advanced Engineering Show (Birmingham) which were both especially successful in enabling us to reach brand new audiences in the automotive, aerospace, and security sectors. At each event, Hub researchers and members of our business development team were on hand to discuss prospective collaborations with exhibition visitors and to provide live demonstrations of new technologies such as multispectral imaging using novel glasses and a new optical fibre-based vibration sensing system. Hardware demonstrators proved particularly strong catalysts for industrial lead generation and we are currently working to add new examples to our portfolio for 2019. The forthcoming year will see the Hub deepen its connections with prospective collaborators by targeting selected international exhibitions within those photonics end-user industries which have responded with particular promise to our 2018 industrial engagement activities.
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