fiber-optics
(6)Michael Wei
Michael Wei is the CEO of Accelight Technologies, a Pleasanton, California ODM that designs and manufactures optical transceivers, EDFA amplifiers, and passive fiber components for telecom carriers and AI data centers. He is an electrical engineer with three decades in the trenches of optical networking hardware, with earlier stops at Mitel, ADVA Optical Networking, Adaptix, Navini Networks, Schlumberger, and Invocon.
Mit Jha
Dr. Mit Jha is the CEO of Quantum Corridor, the first inter-state quantum-safe commercial communications network in North America, running fiber from Chicago's 350 Cermak data center to Hammond, Indiana. A Purdue-trained PhD in transportation systems and former MIT research associate, he spent two decades structuring mega public-private-partnership infrastructure deals as a Managing Principal at Keystone Global before turning that dealmaking discipline toward building a quantum internet backbone across the American Midwest.
Maria Popo
Maria Popo is the president and CEO of SCTE, a subsidiary of CableLabs, and the first woman to hold the top job at the cable industry's standards and training body. A self-described lifelong learner who started as a customer service rep and trained at a trade school, she rose through technical and executive roles at 3M, 3Com, Ambit Microsystems, Foxconn and Ubee Interactive - where she helped bring the first generations of cable modems to market - before earning a master's in Learning Design and Technology at Stanford. She now runs SCTE's global network of 60-plus chapters, retooling how the broadband industry trains and certifies its workforce for the AI era.
Dave Welch
Dave Welch is the founder and CEO of AttoTude, a Menlo Park deep-tech startup building the world's first terahertz interconnect that runs over wire instead of fiber or photonics, aimed at unclogging the data-movement bottleneck inside AI and hyperscale data centers. A co-founder of Infinera, where he pioneered large-scale photonic integrated circuits, and former CTO at SDL, Welch holds more than 200 patents, has authored roughly 300 publications, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In April 2025 AttoTude raised a $50M Series B, pushing total funding past $90M.
Derek Garnier
Derek Garnier is the CEO of Evocative, a global digital infrastructure provider headquartered in Los Angeles, California. With over 35 years in the industry, he has built, operated, and sold multiple companies across data centers, fiber networks, and managed services. A former engineer turned strategist, Garnier co-founded Arcadian Infracom, led Layer42 Networks through a successful acquisition by Wave Broadband in 2015, and returned to Evocative as CEO in February 2023. He champions hybrid cloud, AI-ready infrastructure, and inclusion as core business pillars, guiding Evocative through a significant debt financing round in December 2025 to expand high-density colocation and network capacity for next-generation AI applications.
Kathy Chen
Kathy Chen is a Palo Alto-based entrepreneur and Co-founder of East Optical USA, the North American arm of East Optical, a family-owned Chinese optical lens manufacturer established in 1982. She has built the company's presence across North America, launching the innovative MyoPro myopia management spectacle lens in Canada and expanding into international markets. A regular on the optical industry conference circuit, she has spoken at Vision Expo West in Las Vegas on a Main Stage panel about the Future of Opticianry, attended the Myopia Summit in Toronto, and represented East Optical at Franja 2025 in Bogotá, Colombia.