OFTC in Profile
The Optical Fibre Technology Centre has been a cornerstone of the National Innovation Centre since 1995 and now on the eve of their departure we take this opportunity to reflect upon their journey.
The Optical Fibre Technology Centre (OFTC) was established nearly twenty years ago, in February 1989. The initial support of OTC (Overseas Telecommunications Corporation, later part of Telstra) was critical in this formation and was a result of their requirement for a domestically produced specialty optical fibre for the R&D that underpinned their telecommunications infrastructure, so they funded the University to Sydney to create a domestic capacity.
The OFTC was established by Mark Sceats, Ian Bassett and Tony Stokes. They recruited Simon Poole, from Southampton University, who was instrumental in terms of how the OFTC subsequently developed. In 1994 Simon Fleming joined the team and has headed the OFTC since 1996 when Simon Poole left to spin out Indx p/l.
The OFTC was initially funded chiefly through industry contracts and government research programs, such as GIRD, which encouraged academia and industry to work together. This combination fostered the establishment of a strong culture of entrepreneurship and research activities directed towards meeting industry needs and delivering commercial outcomes. The industry/academia collaborative context provided focus, and aligned staff, resources and research activities in the pursuit of commercial opportunities. This collaboration of industry and academia has been a critical success factor.
The establishment of Federal Government’s ‘Clever Country’ innovation framework in the early 1990’s and the OFTC’s track record in industry focused activities directly placed the OFTC well to win the Australian Photonics CRC in 1992. This substantial funding over the next 14 years transformed the OFTC and led to its establishment here in the NIC in 1995 providing an ideal environment in which to incubate and spin out companies. In its time the OFTC spun off 10 companies and assisted in spinning out a further five. Sydney developed a global reputation as a “hot spot” of photonics R&D and commercial excellence.
The dot.com crash in 2000-2001 triggered the demise of the CRC. This had a significant financial impact on OFTC and particularly the support for working with industry. OFTC reinvented itself for this new economic reality. A shift to more academic rather than industry focused research was implemented with great success in terms of ARC grant wins. However these changes removed the rationale for the major silica fibre fabrication facilities and being located at the NIC.
Achievements
Thus far, optical fibre communications as a technology has had a life span of nearly 40 years, and it’s current form matured about 10 years ago. Being in existence for 20 of those 40 years, the OFTC has been a part of this technological journey for half of this period and made many important contributions, most significantly to the R&D and commercialization of fibre Bragg gratings, the in-fibre filters that made the most recent huge increases in capacity possible..
The OFTC leaves a lasting and impressive track record and legacy including:-
- Spinning out ten companies:-
- APPL, Indx, Nufern, RPPL, ROC, Kadence, Centaurus, Cactus, Smart Digital Optics, Kiriama
- Assisting in the spin out of five more:-
- RIO, RPO, Redfern Broadband Networks, Virtual Photonics, Bandwidth Foundry
- Published 3000 papers
- Sold $1 million of optical fibre
- Applied for 100 patents
- Trained 120 PhD students
- Spent $100 Million ($56 per hour)
- Worked 1.7 million hours
- Established OFTC and Sydney University as a world centre of photonics
[1] (These numbers are approximate)
The diaspora and influence of the OFTC is widespread. Here in Australia many of the next generation of leaders in the photonics research and commercialisation sectors were trained at OFTC, and overseas OFTC alumni are found in leading companies.
And now to the future...
All the most important assets of the OFTC have futures in new environments. The silica fab has been transferred to Adelaide University where it will be consolidated with the soft glass fibre fab. The sensors research group has physically spun out within the NIC as SDO. The researchers are moving back to USYD campus..
Optical fibre has matured as a technology over the last decade and it is now time to make the next advances in the Photonics field. The University of Sydney has established a new Institute of Photonics and Optical Science which will bring together the OFTC researchers, with CUDOS and the developing Astrophotonics group. Headed by Ben Eggleston, an ex OFTC PhD student, the new Institute will focus on photonics research and development in new emerging areas and in particular nanoscience.
We say a fond farewell and wish all the staff the best with their future endeavours and thank them for the enormous contributions made not only in the field of photonics but to the fostering of a culture of entrepreneurship and technological commercialisation success here in Australia.
http://www.oftc.usyd.edu.au/
ITL Design and LX Innovations introduce ‘Nero’
ITL Design and LX Innovations collaborate to design and manufacture 'Nero', a retail display and theft control device for small consumer electronic devices.
The first production quantity of the product, which were manufactured at ITL's Malaysian based manufacturing facility and in South East Asia, have been delivered to the client all within a 12 month time frame. By blending ITL Design's extensive industrial design and manufacturing capabilities with LX Innovations leading electronic design services, Nero is now the most innovative and unique retail theft control device on the market.
Nero is a retail display and theft control device, designed to display consumer electronic products, which attach to the device via a magnetic head, allowing customers to interact with the product. The design is intended to complement the modern retail environment in order to maximise the visual impact of retailer's products, which can vary from small mp3 players to mobiles phones, digital cameras and camcorders. The post can be shelf or wall mounted and rotated to suit the most appropriate display angle.
ITL Design provided the mechanical design and manufacturing, building upon and adding value to the client's existing IP through innovative industrial design, mechanical design and manufacturing using their Malaysian based manufacturing facility. LX Innovations provided the system level design, electronics, firmware, PC software and off-shore manufacturing co-ordination. The system has passed certification for commercial sale.
About ITL Design Background:
ITL Design & Manufacturing is part of an Australian listed company that has been providing clients with complete,
