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Subsea Optical Fiber Communications School

10 July 2022 – 16 July 2022 Spirit of Hven, Backafallsbyn, Sankt IBB, Sweden


This program is for students and early-career professionals interested in the subsea optical fiber communications workforce. It's an opportunity to meet the leading companies and individuals and set yourself on a path to become a leader yourself.

Featuring speakers from Google, Meta, Subcom, Alcatel Submarine Networks, NEC and more along with hands-on demonstrations and networking.
 

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Speakers
2022 Recorded Sessions



Speakers

Jean-Christophe Antona
Alcatel Submarine Networks

Jean-Christophe ANTONA is currently in charge of Line Modeling and Advanced Studies within Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) in Nozay, France. He received engineering degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France, 1998) and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (Paris, 2008), and a Ph.D. degree in electronics and communications from Télécom ParisTech (Paris, 2011). He joined Alcatel Corporate Research Center in 2000 where he modeled Kerr-induced nonlinearities in optical networks and achieved the physical design of large-scale demonstration experiments. Within Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, he headed the Dynamic Optical Networks research group until 2013, before joining ASN. He authored or coauthored more than 70 publications (including six post deadline papers at major telecommunication conferences) and 13 patent applications. His research activities have repeatedly been transferred into the physical design tools of terrestrial networks from Alcatel, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia, and now in the submarine design tools of ASN.

Mattia Cantono
Google

Mattia Cantono received the B.Sc. degree cum laude in information technology engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy, and Tongji University, Shanghai, China, in 2012, and the M.Sc. degree cum laude in telecommunications engineering from the Politecnico di Torino and Politecnico di Milano, in 2014. He was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 2018 cum laude in electronic and communication engineering at Politecnico di Torino with a thesis on physical layer aware open optical networks. During his Ph.D. Mattia collaborated with Synopsys, Cisco Photonics, Orange, Microsoft and TIP. Mattia joined the Optical Architecture team at Google in 2018 where he focuses on terrestrial and subsea optical network design and optimization.

Alan Cheung
Google

Alan is currently Director, Partnerships at Google and is responsible for managing the submarine cable infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. He acts as the Chairperson of the Management Committee/Procurement Group to lead and manage various international submarine cables. He holds an MBA degree from the Hong Kong Baptist University and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from King's College London.

Bartek Drzewiczak
Google

When he’s not hiking or mountain biking, Bartek Drzewiczak — a Technical Program Manager in Google’s Submarine Cable Programs Team based in Switzerland — devotes his time to developing and deploying new submarine cable systems. He currently leads one of the new builds in the EMEAI region. Bartek is a professional with 18 years of experience in the telecom and optical networking industry. He holds an MBA degree from the Kozminski University in Warsaw and Master’s degree in Management of Telecommunication Networks from Warsaw University of Technology.

Michael David Francois
Google

Yoshihisa Inada
NEC Corporation

Mr. Yoshihisa Inada is Senior Manager at Submarine Network Division, NEC Corporation. He is currently the head of SLTE development group. Working in the submarine industry for the past 18 years, he has made significant contributions to the development of submarine cable transmission systems and relevant advanced products, from 10Gb/s to 100Gb/s and beyond. He received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in Communication engineering from Osaka University in 1996 and 1998, respectively.

Valey Kamalov
Google

Senior staff optical transport engineer at Google since 2007, where he is focused on ensuring a cost-effective, highly scalable network that is easy to grow and operate. Prior to joining Google, he designed optical networks at Nokia Siemens Networks, carried out research and lectured at Moscow University and Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Molecular Sciences in Okazaki, Japan, and Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US. He received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Moscow University in quantum electronics, and his Sc.D. degree in chemical physics from the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is author/co-author of 100+ refereed papers in the field of optics.

Raynald Leconte
Cilandak Consulting

Raynald Leconte has held several management position in France Telecom now Orange, in transmission and submarine cable industry. He was for 10 years CEO of Orange Marine. This company is operating 6 cable ships for Maintenance and Installation. He has a detailed knowledge of the industry. He has been also head of division for the investment and engineering for submarine cable. Raynald Leconte was chairperson of different submarine system Management Committee, among which Sea Me We 3 and TAT 14. Raynald Leconte is an international expert, recognized by the industry

Andrew Metcalf
Google

Georg Mohs
SubCom LLC

Georg Mohs has more than 20 years of experience in optical telecommunications, with more than 18 years of experience in the ultralong haul undersea transmission systems field. He is now the Vice President of Research and Development and Chief Technology Officer at SubCom, a vertically integrated supplier of turnkey intercontinental undersea telecommunications systems and associated services. Georg holds nine US and international patents and has authored or coauthored over 100 peer-reviewed articles for international conferences and scientific journals, including a chapter in Optical Fiber Communications VI. Georg is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and holds a BS in Physics from the University of Dortmund, Germany and a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona, USA.

Pascal Pecci
Alcatel Submarine Networks

After his PhD in 2000, Pascal Pecci started working for Alcatel Research and Innovation on 40G transmission in optical fiber and had 2 world records transmission. After 9 years in R&D he joined the Product Line Management team to become a PLM of the Alcatel Lucent design tools for terrestrial networks. In 2013, Pascal Pecci joined the Submarine division of Alcatel-Lucent, where he defined the design rules for submarine and designed many advanced networks on Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He wrote a chapter entitled “ULH submarine transmission” in “Undersea Fiber communication systems” book edited by José Chesnoy and had articles in recent Suboptic, OFC and ECOC. In 2018, he joined the submarine PLM team to promote SDM solutions. Finally, in 2021, he joined the ASN project team and, as Technical Chief Engineer, he is now managing key ASN projects.

Elizabeth Rivera Hartling
Meta

Elizabeth Rivera Hartling graduated in 2008 from Queen’s University, in Kingston, Canada, with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. Today, she is a Subsea Optical Network Engineer at Facebook, focused on optimizing Meta's Subsea Open Cable designs, to build a scalable, high capacity, cost-effective subsea network to meet Meta's growing bandwidth demands. Elizabeth entered the subsea industry in 2008 working for Ciena as an upgrade vendor, when the subsea upgrade market was a new idea to the industry. She was a founding member of the Ciena Submarine R&D engineering team, designing and executing solutions for some of the very first subsea industry 40G and 100G coherent deployments, as well as co-pioneering the ITU standardization of submarine power budget tables for coherent technologies.

Marsha Spalding
SubCom LLC

Jayne Stowell
Google

Jayne is a Senior Strategic Negotiator in Google’s Global Infrastructure Group. Her focus is development, deployment and management of new submarine cable systems. Jayne has led various submarine cable initiatives in most parts of the world: North-South America, trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific, intra-Asia, intra-Europe and Europe/Middle East/India and has served as chairman of many consortium owned submarine cables. Her submarine cable origins began with MFS Communications (later MCI WorldCom) and Level 3 Communications where she was Senior Vice President responsible for its global submarine cable businesses. Jayne is a member of the board of both International Cable Protection Committee and SubOptic Ltd., the two global submarine cable education and industry consultative associations. Jayne also holds a MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Simon Webster
NEC Corporation

Simon Webster has a degree in Physics from Oxford University, plus Masters and Business qualifications from the University of London and Henley Management College respectively. He has been with NEC since 1994, and currently heads NEC’s business in EMEA for submarine cable networks and ocean observation systems. He has held many previous roles over this time, in areas including terrestrial optics, access networks and mobile applications. Simon is also closely involved with subsea cables for earthquake and tsunami detection, and is a steering committee member of a UN ESCAP Sustainable Business Network task force to advance cabled tsunami early warning systems in Asia.

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Schedule

Monday, 11 July   

7:30 - Breakfast and Introductions

9:00 - Introduction to Submarine Networks - Valey Kamalov with welcome from Google, Optica Foundation, and Suboptic Foundation 

10:15 - Coffee Break

10:45 - Cable Ships and Marine Equiptment - Raynald Leconte

12:00 - Lunch 

13:30 - Introduction to Submarine Networks - Valey Kamalov

14:30 - Coffee Break

15:00 - Optical Transmission - Jean Christophe Antona

16:00 - Coffee Break

16:30 - System Deployment and Life of the Cable - Alan Cheung

17:30 - Free Time

18:30 - Dinner

19:30 - Roundtable - Evolution of Submarine Networks and Technology - Bartek Drzewiczak, Chair
 

Tuesday, 12 July   

7:30 - Breakfast and Small Group Reflection

9:00 - Marine Projects - Andrew Metcalf

10:15 - Coffee Break

10:45 - Networks Topologies and Supervisory and Tools - Yoshihisa Inada

12:00 - Lunch

13:30 - Submerged Plant Equipment - Georg Mohs

14:30 - Coffee Break

15:00 - Cables and Fibers - Marsha Spalding

16:00 - Coffee Break

16:30 - Optical Transmission 2 - Pascal Pecci

17:30 - Career Cocktail Social - Lisa Bickford 

19:30 - Dinner
 

Wednesday, 13 July   

7:30 - Breakfast and Small Group Reflection

9:00 - Cable Powering - Yoshihisa Inada

10:15 - Coffee Break

10:45 - Networks Topologies and Supervisory and Tools - Mattia Cantono and Shirshendu Bhattacharya

12:00 -  System Deployment and Life of the Cable. Life of a Permit/Government Relationship - Andrew Metcalf

13:00 - Social Day

18:30 - Dinner
 

Thursday, 14 July   

7:30 - Breakfast and Small Group Reflection

9:00 - Network Topologies and Submarine Terminals - Elizabeth Rivera Hartling

10:15 - Coffee Break

10:45 - Submerged Plant Equipment - Georg Mohs

12:00 - Lunch

13:30 - Subsea Strategic Negotiation MasterClass - Jayne Stowell

14:30 - Coffee Break

15:00 -  Network Topologies and Submarine Upgrades - Elizabeth Rivera Hartling and Mattia Cantono

16:00 - Coffee Break

16:30 - Alternative Applications & Hybrid Cables - Simon Webster

17:30 - SURPRISE GUEST

19:00 - Banquet
 

Friday, 15 July   

7:30 - Breakfast and Small Group Reflection

9:00 - Marine Repair - Raynald Leconte

10:15 - Coffee Break

10:45 - Subsea Earthquake and Tsunami Network - Valey Kamalov

12:00 - Lunch

13:30 - Exam 

17:00 - Cisco Closing Party

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2022 Recorded Sessions

View the recorded sessions below:

 

 

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