Fibre Optic Communication Workshop

The Wits Optics and Stellenbosch Laser student chapters would like to invite you to join us in Johannesburg or Stellenbosch in April for an exciting workshop on submarine and terrestrial fibre communication, the backbone of the internet

Open to all, but preference will be given to postgraduate and undergraduate students, educators and academics. Please register (for free) below if you are keen to attend.

What will the talks be about?

• Submarine Fibre Basics
• Terrestrial Fibre Basics
• Cloud Computing – services and how fibre networks are important for cloud computing

What to expect?

• Two (almost) identical full-day workshops at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and Stellenbosch, hosted by the respective Optica Student Chapters.
• International and local speakers from Google, Infinera and others.
• A professional development talk from an Google staff member.
• Networking (the social kind) opportunities.

Johannesburg Event

18 April at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Register by 1 April – space is limited.

• The agenda for the day will be posted closer to the event.
• Attendees can apply to briefly present their own work in an open session.
• There will be a laboratory tour of the Wits Optical Communication Lab.

Stellenbosch Event

20 April at STIAS, Stellenbosch University

Register by 1 April – space is limited. (Note this is not the same registration link as Johannesburg)

• The agenda for the day will be posted closer to the event.
• Professional development session by 2023 Optica Ambassador, Dr Mitch Cox.
• There will be an excursion to the Equiano cable landing station in Melkbosstrand on 21 April. We will have the opportunity to tour the facilities and learn more about the different submarine and terrestrial networks. The tour will be approximately 90 minutes and further details will be confirmed closer to the date. There are limited spaces. Transport from Stellenbosch can be provided.
• Talks presented at Stellenbosch on 20 April will be streamed online. Please register to receive a stream link.

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Please contact Alice Drozdov at alice.drozdov@wits.ac.za if you have any questions, or look out for the registration link which will be posted soon.

Please note that we are unable to sponsor accommodation or travel.

Organised by

Sponsors

Speakers

Valey Kamalov

Industry Expert

Valey Kamalov is an expert in subsea optical networking, most recently serving as a Chair of the Suboptic 2023 Paper Committee. Valey’s fundamental contributions into the industry include building 1st coherent cable (SJC), 1st open cable (Faster), 1st SDM cable (Dunant), 1st fiber switching (Equiano), which defined the growth of capacity to connect continents.

Valey’s career in the industry includes 20+ years at Siemens and Google. Valey’s academic career includes teaching at Moscow State University, visiting professorship and research at Georgia Institute of Technology, Okazaki Institute for Molecular Science in Japan, and Italy. Valey was a driving force to establish SubseaOFC Summer School in Finland in 2019, and in Sweden in 2022. He is serving at Suboptic working group, and on the Board of Optica Foundation. Valey published 100+ scientific papers including papers in Science in 2021 and 2022, and holds multiple US patents. He received BS in physics and PhD in quantun electronics from Moscow University, and ScD from Russian Academy of Science for contributions in time-resolved nonilinear spectroscopy.

Geoff Bennett

Director of Solutions & Technology

INFINERA

Geoff Bennett is the Director of Solutions & Technology for Infinera, a global supplier of innovative open optical networking solutions and advanced optical semiconductors.  He has over 35 years of experience in the data communications industry, including IP routing with Proteon and Wellfleet; ATM and MPLS experience with FORE Systems; and optical transmission and switching experience with Marconi, where he held the position of Distinguished Engineer in the CTO Office.  Geoff is a frequent conference speaker, and is the author of “Designing TCP/IP Internetworks”, published by VNR.

Jonathan Davidson

Customer Engineer

GOOGLE CLOUD AFRICA

Jonathan Davidson is a Customer Engineer for Google Cloud Africa, working with some of Africa's largest companies across industries such as telecommunications, banking, and insurance to help accelerate their digital transformation and migration to cloud. Jonathan is an experienced Cloud Solutions Architect with expertise in infrastructure modernisation, hybrid-cloud, cloud-native and DevOps technologies. He has previously worked in solution consulting roles in large multinational companies such as Red Hat, Software AG, TIBCO software. Jonathan holds a degree in computer science from the University of Pretoria.

Ronald Moorcroft

Optical Transmission Engineer

Ronald Moorcroft holds a Master in Optomechatronics from the Centro de Investigaciones en Optica, A.G. (Mex) and is pursuing a PhD in Photonics at the University of Johannesburg. He has been serving as the Technical Programme Committee Vice Chairperson for the Southern Africa Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC). Ronald has been working as an Optical Transmission Engineer within the Openserve/Telkom SA Engineering Centre of Excellence, focussing on technology introduction for OTN and WDM networks and was the technical design lead on Openserve's and Google's terrestrial capacity backhaul for Equiano.

Justice Sompo

Technical Program Manager

GOOGLE

Justice Sompo is currently working as a Technical Program Manager on a Google project. In this role he coordinates the deployment of Google’s metro and long haul Optical networks in Sub-Saharan Africa to backhaul submarine network to datacentres. Justice received a Masters and PhD in photonics engineering from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.

Mitchell Cox

Optica Ambassador

UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

Dr. Mitch Cox is a Senior Lecturer at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. His research focuses on structured light and optical communications. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering with distinction and then earned an MSc in High Energy Physics after working briefly in industry. Dr. Cox then pivoted his focus to his current passion and completed his PhD, which aimed to increase the range of free-space optical links in turbulence through the use of structured light.

Dr. Cox co-founded the Wits OC Lab, where he employs his expertise in structured light and "nerdy engineer" skills to create innovative solutions for long-range free-space optical communication. He utilizes low cost, off-the-shelf components whenever possible – often in ways that were not intended by the manufacturers. With his broad and extensive interests, Dr. Cox has a vision of using his research to bridge the digital divide and make high-speed internet access available to people globally.