He cited “The Economist” to state that the Fifth Industrial Revolution
is on based on semiconductors, genetic, software and fibre optics.
While stressing the need for entrepreneurship in the field of optics,
Dr Breault urged students to create their own companies. “In Korea, we
created a cluster comprising of 297 companies with five people each,
and after three years the total revenue from this cluster was $ 1
billion”, he said.
Dr Breault added that the dotcom turmoil of 2001 did not affect the
optics industry and this has resulted in substantial investments in
this field. Singapore has invested $ 1 billion while Korea has invested
another $ 800 million. Optics has now entered toys, medical devices,
chip manufacturing, cars, food, security devices and systems in
general. He identified Malaysia, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, Ukraine and
US as key locations for the optic industry, and earnestly hoped that
Thailand would emerge as another hub. In an inspiring lecture where he
cited his own example of how he has never worked for anyone, but had
always created jobs, Dr Breault how he started his own company with $
200 in late 1979, and had grown to be a millionaire by 1984. A strong
votary of student companies, Dr Breault remarked, “Money does not
create companies, brains do”.
Earlier Dr. Joydeep Dutta, Director of the Nanotechnology Center of
Excellence welcome Dr Breault describing him recognized as one of the
world's leading experts in the area of stray light analysis and
suppression.
About Dr. Robert P. Breault:
Dr. Breault has been involved in over 275 stray light analyses, using
the APART™ stray light analysis program, which he authored. He was
instrumental in the fabrication and or use of five different devices to
measure the bi-directional scattering characteristics of surfaces. Dr.
Breault has received awards of recognition from NASA (1977, 1978,
1984), and an award in 1979 from the University of Arizona for his
outstanding dissertation in the field of applied sciences. His work
covers original research on the scattering of coated surfaces, paints,
glass, and mirrored surfaces — many of these for varying degrees of
cleanliness or for different fabrication techniques.
Chairman of the Board of Breault Research Organization (BRO), Dr. Breault is author and
co-author of two chapters in the Handbook of Optics, Dr. Breault
received his B.S. in mathematics from Yale University and his M.S. and
Ph.D. in optical sciences from the University of Arizona. He is a
fellow of SPIE and chairman of the Arizona Optics Industry Association
(AOIA).
Dr. Robert P. Breault at the
Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology at AIT