About
Photonics4 has been founded from a passion for photonics. The initial concept was to explain how photonics is used in different markets. So photonics4automotive, photonics4healthcare, photonics4agrifood, etc. This evolved to a more general mission to support the overall photonics industry. Now, Photonics4 is built on two main pillars:
- Sharing knowledge (through information portals)
- Supporting the industry (through marketing support)
About our founder
Photonics4 is founded by Jessica van Heck. Jessica has a bachelor in engineering, started in sales, moved to marketing and in one of her previous jobs, she was CEO of a Swiss association in micro-optics.
Overall, she has 20+ years of experience in the corporate world with a strong focus on strategic marketing and business development and 10+ years in photonics.
“When I applied for my first job in photonics, I wrote that I thought light technology was fascinating, but I never knew exactly how fascinating it was until I learned about the wide spread of applications in which photonics is used”.
Information portals
“Early on in my career, I learned that no one cares about what you do, but in what you do for them. For me that has always resulted in a very target group and in most cases market specific approach”. This is exactly what we are doing with Photonics4. Explain for different market segments how photonics technologies are used, through websites like Photonics4 Automotive, Photonics4 Healthcare and Photonics4 AgriFood.
And even though sustainability is a very generic topic, photonics is making a use impact. Therefore, we have also launched Photonics4 Sustainability, a website dedicated to showing how photonics is supporting the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals.
For the general public, we have also created a more generic “Photonics4 Knowledge” website, which is our starting platform to write about many different applications in a variety of markets and on a level that is understandable by the general public.
Supporting the industry
Photonics is a true key-enabling technology and there are many developments happening right now, where pilot lines and companies are taking newly developed photonics-based technologies from the lab into industry.
Most founders or coordinators are highly educated technical people, who understand the technology like no other, but don’t always know how to best position the developments in the right place to the right audience. For this there are marketing agencies, however they don’t always understand the technology.
This is where Photonics4 offers unique added value. Any support is overseen by our founder with her 20+ years in marketing and 10+ years in photonics. “I have a particular passion to support start-ups as they need the most support in order to position their product or service as best as possible towards success and typical marketing agencies will not be able to help them the way I can”. This is why for start-ups in photonics we offer specialised support at reduced rates on the principle of “together we grow”.
