School of Engineering student wins OPTO Startup Challenge

Samuel Schaefer, a fourth-year School of Engineering student at UBC’s Okanagan campus, won first place at the OPTO Startup Challenge for his presentation of his research group’s product: a smart, compact microscope in the palm of your hand.

Schaefer developed the microscope with Kenneth Chau, assistant professor electrical engineering, and fellow undergraduate Stephen Boehm during a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) term over the summer of 2011.

The OPTO Startup Challenge, an international competition to pitch photonics business ideas, was held Jan. 25 at Photonics West, one of the largest optics and photonics conferences in the world. Competitors included students and professors from universities around the world. The prize was an all-expenses paid trip to attend a five-day course at the University of California at Davis Entrepreneurship Academy, courtesy of JENOPTIK, an optoelectronics group, to help further develop the business case.

For more information, visit: https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2012/02/17/school-of-engineering-student-wins-opto-startup-challenge/