The Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA) seeks NSF support to increase student and academia participation in "OPTOmism : Powering the Green Revolution through Photonics." OPTOmism is the first interdisciplinary conference that addresses the role of photonics in green technology and focuses on both the technology and policy of green photonics.
Intellectual Merit The Technical Conference consists of plenary sessions and three parallel technical tracks. The plenary sessions include highly distinguished speakers addressing broader policy and technology issues. The selection of the papers for these technical sessions meets rigorous standards. OIDA will issue a call for papers, from which outside review committees will select papers for oral presentation. In addition to presented papers, the conference will host a poster session during a networking reception at the conclusion of the first day.
Broader Impacts NSF funding will support an innovative new medium of conference information dissemination: a real-time, moderated blog. OIDA will fund a professor and students for each of the three technical tracks. The students will attend each session to document and annotate the material presented. The professor will moderate the blog to ensure appropriate content which OIDA will then post on the conference web site. This will provide a learning opportunity for the students both in exposing them to the latest technology and leaders in the industry and by improving their technical writing skills. This innovative concept taps into the younger generation's propensity to rely heavily on the Internet for communication and as a source of information. OIDA expects that student-generated material, targeted at students, will broaden the impact of the conference.
