This workshop will provide an opportunity to get in on the ground floor in educating technicians for one of the most exciting and fastest growing technologies - PHOTONICS!

Optics and photonics applications are rapidly transforming the way we work and live. Photonics, and its applications, involve the cutting-edge use of lasers, optics, fiber-optics, sensors, cameras, and electro-optical devices. Photonics has many applications in manufacturing, medicine, aerospace, communications, security, solid-state lighting, and other high-tech fields. Thus it represents a broad, commercially viable area in which American employers require a steady supply of well-qualified technicians.

This regional national workshop is targeted to community and technical college faculty, staff, and administrators, as well as industry/workforce trainers. While this workshop will be focused on photonics in the Northeast/New England region, the concepts will be applicable and interesting to educators nationwide. Participants will be provided information on the growing need for photonics technicians and postsecondary programs to educate them. OP-TEC staff will explain the opportunities for attendees to create new AAS programs in photonics and/or to infuse optics and photonics instruction into existing technical programs in technologies that are enabled by photonics. Attendees will also learn about OP-TEC materials and services available for planning and implementing photonics education at their institutions