Beyond the Electron: Photonics at the Frontier
Light is becoming the medium of computation and the window to get ahead of it is now.
Photonics is moving fast across datacenters, AI hardware, quantum systems, and beyond. The breakthroughs are real. So are the hard problems still left to solve.
Berkeley Gateway Accelerator and Opticore are co-hosting a focused evening for founders, researchers, investors, and students to hear from those at the frontier.
Come to learn. Come to connect. Come ready to talk.
Event Format
5:30–6:00 PM: Doors open + networking
6:00–6:10 PM: Welcome remarks
6:10–7:00 PM: Panel discussion + Q&A (combined, Kai can manage the flow)
7:00–7:30 PM: Networking reception
7:30 PM: Close
Panelist Lineup
Kai Schuster (Marketing Manager, Opticore): Moderator
Marketing Manager at Opticore, a photonic computing company building the next generation of AI hardware. Before joining Opticore, he founded Radion, a photonic computing startup, and holds a Master's in Materials Science from UC Berkeley, a background that gives him a rare ability to speak both the language of deep tech and the language of the market. He now leads marketing at Opticore, where he's helping define how the world understands photonic computing.
Ryan Hamerly (CTO, Opticore): Panelist
Co-founder and CTO of Opticore, a Berkeley-based photonic computing startup building chips that are 100x more energy-efficient than GPUs. He holds a B.S. from Caltech and a Ph.D. from Stanford (2016), where he studied quantum optics and nonlinear optics.
Daniel Klawson (CEO, Topolight): Panelist
Co-founder and COO of TopoLight, a photonics startup building the next generation of semiconductor lasers. He earned his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's Ming Wu Integrated Photonics Lab, where his dissertation research focused on developing scalable photonic integrated circuits for trapped ion quantum computers, introducing a novel hybrid architecture combining 2D waveguides with 3D-printed micro-optics.
Jorn Smeets (Managing Director, PhotonDelta): Panelist
Managing Director of North America at PhotonDelta, Europe's leading integrated photonics ecosystem. After several years as the organization's Chief Marketing Officer and Board member, he now leads PhotonDelta's North America region, working to accelerate the photonic chip industry by building collaborations between North America and the international PhotonDelta ecosystem.
WHO SHOULD COME
Founders & operators building in photonics, optical computing, or adjacent hardware spaces
Investors & VCs tracking the deep tech market and looking for signal on what’s next
Researchers & academics working on photonic systems, from university labs to national labs
Students exploring careers at the intersection of physics, engineering, and entrepreneurship
Industry professionals in semiconductors, datacenters, AI infrastructure, or optical networking
Deep tech enthusiasts curious about where light-based computing is headed