Global Photonics Economic Forum 2024

About the Speaker

Dr. Michael S. Lebby has deep experience running and leading technology companies, especially those developing, manufacturing and productizing new platform technologies.  Dr. Lebby’s experience includes research, development, volume scale, marketing, sales, finance, and corporate activities both with management as well as at a board director level.  Dr. Lebby’s technical acumen stems from his entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial skills working throughout his career in both large corporate organizations as well as venture backed start-ups and public companies. After joining LWLG’s Board of Directors in 2015, and leading the corporation as CEO in 2017, Dr. Lebby successfully navigated LWLG from OTCQ to the NASDAQ through an organic uplisting with the rare situation of no reverse splits or associated public offering in 2021.  The new technology platform that Dr. Lebby is driving at LWLG has the potential to change the way the internet operates and performs both from a performance as well as power efficiency perspective.Dr. Lebby is considered an expert in the technological fields of semiconductors, electronics, optoelectronics/photonics, and optical systems in general.  Dr. Lebby has built world class teams not only to productize new and novel technology platforms from research concepts through development to production, but also in sales, marketing, human relations, legal, and finance. Dr. Lebby’s career started with the British Government in 1977 in telecommunications and he did research at their prestigious research labs (RSRE Malvern) in the early 1980s and worked at AT&T Bell Labs (1985-1989) in photonics. At Motorola in the 1990s he drove the development, including the first patent co-authorship of the oxide VCSEL diode laser which is now used in laser mice, 3D sensing/FaceID in mobile phones and optical interconnects with volumes of over 1B units today.From 2005-2010 he led the USA trade association in optoelectronics (OIDA) and represented and petitioned on behalf of the optoelectronics industry on Capitol Hill for major multi-national corporations. Dr. Lebby has run and led several technological start-ups such as Ignis Optics, One Chip Photonics, Translucent Photonics as well as groups in Motorola, Tyco Electronics, AT&T, Intel and others. Dr. Lebby has nurtured innovative technology through building a range of customers from small business enterprises to multi-national corporations.  Dr. Lebby was voted PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit) business leader of the year by the industry-based PIC International Conference in 2018. He is a technical expert to the European Commission, and a Fellow of NAI, IEEE and Optica.  He also is Chair-elect of Optic’s Corporate Engagement Counsel, a board of industry representatives to further business activity in the sector.