CARLA camp Lausanne

On Thursday 17th and Friday 18th of November 2022 EPFL hosted a CARLA camp event entitled Careers in Photonics! The event took place in person at EPFL in Lausanne. The first full day only on-site and the second day was held hybrid

The camp targeted STEM undergraduates, Master students, not already involved in photonics as well as PhDs or Postdocs already in the field or willing to know about career opportunities in photonics within academia or industry from startups to large companies!

During the two days we had over 200 participants, including students, researchers and speakers, from many different countries but a vast majority of them based in Switzerland, and diverse background including physics, medicine, engineering or chemistry.

On November 17 (on-site) the participants could:

• Listen to inspiring presentations about the use of photonics for major societal challenges such as health, energy/climate, consumer needs and industrial production.
• Directly discuss research projects with PhD students (poster exhibit).
• Follow the development of the Museum of Optics in Jena.
• Discover the very diverse Photonics careers in academy and industry through testimonials and panel discussions.
• Discover EPFL Photonics labs (video pitches).
• Network with pairs and experts from academia, industry and entrepreneurship in a casual atmosphere with food, drinks and live music.
• Contemplate numerous job offers posted on walls.

On November 18 (hybrid event) they could:

• Discover more general aspects of career development: soft skills, human resources expectations, useful networks and associations, flexibility, needs from industry, the future of work, alumni of EPFL, etc.
• Deeper focus on entrepreneurship: how to transform a brilliant idea into a successful start-up.
• Discover European and global photonics associations and landscapes.

The project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871457.