Interface[s] Montréal

Network Resonance

André Girard

Senior Member of Technical Staff, EXFO

There is no technology in Quebec; is there any somewhere else?

View the presentation [In French]

Quebec, and to some extent Canada, is on the verge of becoming a third-world country when considering technology and in particular related to Telecommunications. As any other country, we are obviously able to make R&D in fields such fiber optic telecommunications: we have enough researchers for that. However, it is not clear that we can afford substantial and long term investments and supports to the growth of large enterprises 100% owned by Quebecois, giving jobs to thousands of employees and making yearly sales of more than $US 100 millions. In order to allow the participants developing their own opinion on the question, this presentation will make a survey on the worldwide development of the most recent technologies related to fiber optic telecommunications and the current and future personal applications justifying such development.

Dr. Girard is responsible for international standards at EXFOas Canada delegate at the International Telecommunication Union, President of Canada Fiber Optic (FO) National Committee and International Convenor at the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Chairman of a Subcommittee in Telecommunications Industry Association and liaison officer for Canada to the American National Standards Institute FO IEC Technical Advisory Group. He has a Ph.D. in lasers from the INRS and a B.Sc. in physics from Laval University. He is currently Associate Professor at theÉTS, Montreal. He has received TIA distinguished recognition and IEC 1906 Award for exceptional contributions in the field of international standards.