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2 December 2022 (ICFO)

Workshops

9:00 to 9:30

Registration

9:30 to 9:40

Welcome and Introduction

9:40 to 11:40

Innovation workshop by ICFO-KTT & Quside

Alastair Cunningham

KTT Project Portfolio Manager at ICFO

Sergi Ferrando

ICFO's PHOTONCAT Manager and CLP Coordinator

Carlos Abellan

Co-founder & CEO at Quside Technologies

José Ramón Martínez

Lead Scientist at Quside Technologies

Roger Ponce

Business Developer

9:40 to 13:40

Workshop on career development by hfp consulting (including a coffee break*)

Romilde Manzoni

Consultant and COO at hfp consulting

11:40 to 12:10

Coffee break*

12:10 to 13:40

ICFO Labtour (registration required)

13:40 to 14:50

Lunch break* with networking session

14:50 to 15:00

Closing words

* Provided by ICFO

In collaboration with

With the support of

Trustees

Bio

Dr. Alastair Cunningham has worked in ICFO’s KTT Unit since 2018, managing, amongst other topics, the energy intellectual property portfolio of the institute. Here, he focusses on establishing connections between the institute and potential industrial partners. Prior to this he worked for a major funder of cancer research, managing a national network of leading cancer research centres, and for a technology consultancy, communicating emerging scientific concepts to international clients in the energy, automotive, and materials sectors. His academic background is in optical materials (PhD, University of Geneva), nanoscience (MSc, University of Neuchâtel) and chemistry (MSci, University of Strathclyde).

About the Institution

ICFO is a CERCA research centre member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, founded in 2002 by the Government of Catalonia and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · Barcelona Tech, both of which are members of ICFO’s board of trustees along with the Cellex and Mir-Puig Foundations, philanthropic entities that have played a critical role in the advancement of the institute. Located in the Mediterranean Technology Park in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, the institute currently hosts 500 people, organized in 25 research teams that use 80 state-of-the-art research laboratories. Research lines encompass diverse areas in which photonics plays a decisive role, with an emphasis on basic and applied themes relevant to medicine and biology, advanced imaging techniques, information technologies, a range of environmental sensors, tunable and ultra-fast lasers, quantum science and technologies, photovoltaics and the properties and applications of nano and quantum materials such as graphene, among others. In addition to three consecutive accreditations of the Severo Ochoa national program for top research excellence, ICFOnians have been awarded 16 elite ICREA Professorships as well as 42 European Research Council grants. ICFO is very proactive in fostering entrepreneurial activities, spin-off creation, and creating collaborations and links between industry and ICFO researchers. To date, ICFO has helped create 11 start-up companies.

Bio

Sergi holds a BSC in Physics from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), an MSc in Mathematics from the University of London and a PhD in Physics from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (EPFL). After his PhD, Sergi moved to Japan for a 2-year post-doc at the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS). He then returned to the Barcelona area where he worked first as R&D Project Leader and then as R&D Director at MONOCROM S.L.. In 2013, Sergi joined ICFO’s KTT Team as business developer to focus on spin-off initiatives inside ICFO’s KTT Launchpad. During this period, he has actively contributed to the constitution of 3 spin-off companies and has been involved in the incubation of 5 other Launchpad projects. He is presently the manager of PHOTONCAT, the Catalan Photonics Innovation Hub, and leads its interaction with initiatives like PhotonHub Europe and the DIH4CAT (the European Digital Innovation Hub of Catalonia). He is vice-president at Fotónica21’s board and former board member of SECPHO.

About the Institution

Bio

Romilde Manzoni, scientist by training and her professional life has always been divided between the lab and the volleyball court. She soon discovered that these two worlds have a lot in common and that her real passion is working with people and help them thrive.

After more than ten years of experience, she realized that in the academic research there are challenges that go beyond pure science: productive and authentic interaction with people, knowing how to inspire and motivate a group, ability to make informed decisions about future careers. The strong focus on being an expert and excel as a scientist leaves little room for professional and personal development. After joining hfp she decided to invest her career in teaching these skills to scientists with the mission to shape the culture in science by reinforcing values like listening, collaborating and emotional well-being.

In both science and sport, understanding social interactions, what drives human behaviors, and unveiling the forces that keep a team together, have always been her passions.

About the Institution

Since 2005, hfp consulting provides professional development workshops exclusively for the scientific community. Our mission is to help scientists grow and succeed by working with them to develop leadership and self-management skills, by fostering personal development, as well as by strengthening interpersonal competencies and communication skills. We strongly believe that these skills, essential for today’s challenges in scientific work, can be acquired and developed at any career stage. As a provider who exclusively focuses on training scientists, we can ensure workshops of the highest quality. We have developed and established professional development workshops for scientists at leading organizations in Europe (e.g. NBI, MRC, Crick in the UK, EMBO, BRIC and NNF in Copenhagen, VBC and IST in Vienna, BIST and PRBB in Barcelona, and SystemsX.ch network in Switzerland), the Middle East (e.g. Weizmann, Technion, Tel Aviv University), the USA (e.g. Harvard Medical School, MIT, Princeton, Cornell), Africa (supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), and Japan. These organizations run one of the most successful training programmes for scientists and we are proud to have pioneered this together with them and that we are continually involved in these programmes on a regular basis.

If you are curious to know more about hfp consulting, please check the value proposition here.