Opto-electronics Facility Planned in Wales

CARDIFF, Wales, Jan. 23 -- A national business incubation and research facility dedicated to the growth of the opto-electronics industry is being planned by the Welsh Development Agency (WDA).

The Optronics Technology and Incubation Centre (OpTIC) will be housed in an 82,000-sqare-foot, $21 million facility that will include 24 business-incubator units, a state-of-the-art clean room and a technology center where researchers from industry and academia can combine their talents to develop new products and processes. It will also have conference, training and restaurant facilities to enable OpTIC to become a national venue for science and technology, the agency said.

Construction is underway for the facility, which is slated to be open in fall 2003. It will be located in an existing cluster of opto-electronics companies in St. Asaph, North Wales, in close proximity to the University of Wales at Bangor, the site of the Centres of Excellence for Technology and Industrial Collaboration, the Centre for Industrial and Commercial Opto-electronics and the Institute for Bioelectronic and Molecular Microsystems.

OpTIC, part of the WDA's Technium business development program, will offer businesses access to technology and expertise, training, incubation support, broadband fiber optic links to commercial and university networks, access to qualified graduates, advice in marketing and intellectual property rights and access to venture capital sources, as well as technical development support from the WDA and other government organizations, Maxwell said.

Support for the project is from the Welsh Opto-electronics Forum, European Union funding, the WDA and the private sector. Applications are now being accepted for companies interested in participating.

For more information, visit: www.wda.co.uk