Just hours after the close of the DVN Munich Workshop last week, the feedback started coming in. I can summarise by quoting from one of the light source supplier attendees: “My congratulations. The workshop was again really very nice and maybe the best one of all so far (number and “quality” of participants, quality of presentations and also location wise)!”
I thank all of you for your feedback—nice words like these really encourage me and give me the passion to continue. And I thank all the participants who put faith in DVN and come from all around the world to attend the Workshops. Thanks also to the speakers who made such fruitful lectures, to the exhibiting sponsors, and to Michael Kleinkes for his wonderful speech. Of course, I’m not asking that you send only positive feedback! If you have suggestions for how the next workshop can be made even better, please get in touch; I am eager to hear your ideas.
As to the Workshop itself: the most important point, what I retain a week later, is the huge challenges the lighting industry is going through right now. Big decisions without quick or obvious answers: How to divide up R&D investments in ADB among matrix, DMD, LCD, MicroLED, and scanning laser technologies…where to invest in styling with LED, laser, OLED, ARS…when to invest in new functions to prepare for autonomous cars and V2x communications…which new technologies to invest in strategically to reach the market at the optimal time for your company and its particulars, and many more.
I hope the lectures, the panel discussion, and the networking opportunities of the Munich Workshop are already proving beneficial in your work. That is always my main focus in preparing a DVN Workshop, day after day, week after week, month after month.
And speaking of the achievements in these last 10 years, I would like to come back on the 10 year DVN anniversary ceremony to congratulate:
- to Ingolf Schneider for his dynamism in convincing management to put money into new lighting functions;
- to Carlos Elvira for his similarly fruitful efforts toward styling differentiation which has brought a unique lighting signature to SEAT cars;
- to Paul-Henri Matha, whose tireless work on LED headlamp cost reduction has prompted his company to put LED lights on all models;
- to professor Khanh, who arrived 12 years ago at a laboratory in bad condition and quickly and efficiently turned it around, as evidenced by the over 1,000 attendees at the last ISAL;
- to Reiner Neumann, whose lectures are always as entertaining as they are informative;
- to Uwe Kostanzer, working these last 10 years to launch several new technologies;
- to Jan Hamkens, whose company have developed ways of making glass shapes impossible to do just a few years ago.
Of course that’s not an exhaustive list—these are just a few examples of the dynamism of our lighting community, which has developed wonderful innovations and styling differentiations, preparing for the coming new paradigms; I am very optimistic.
Next: see you June 5th in Tokyo for the next DVN Workshop centred round technologies and regulations. Onward and upward!
Sincerely yours
DVN President