About Us

Bringing Together Experience and Knowledge from Industry and Academia to Deliver Practical, Company-Ready Expertise

At PIC Bootcamp, we empower individuals and organisations to harness the potential of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for real-world applications. Our mission is to bridge the skills gap in the photonics industry by providing hands-on, industry-relevant training that equips participants with the knowledge and expertise to for the rapidly evolving field.

Our Story

In 2022, a colleague's struggle to find skilled photonic integrated circuits (PIC) engineers initiated our project. Further conversations in our industrial community revealed a general need for practical, industry-deployable skills. We realised that standard university courses weren't adequately bridging this growing skills gap.

But that was not enough; when broadening our conversations, we learned that in the product design world, people wanted to know when they should be considering PICs and what commercial risk they carried. So, when the opportunity came through a skill grant call from Innovate UK, we came together and applied for funding to develop a hands-on, industry-focused training program.

The courses are based on university courses developed by Bristol University, augmented by Southampton's fabrication expertise. We combined industrial insight from Wave Photonics and Bay Photonics, ensuring the courses' industrial relevance. Using the connections from Anchored In, we have sought and are seeking companies' feedback on our approach to remain relevant to industry needs.