This course will explore the entrepreneurial process of creating a new technology venture. An entrepreneur must have the personality, the technical skills, and the business acumen to create a successful venture. Identifying and evaluating an opportunity which is aligned with the entrepreneur's skills and goals and provides a significant return to the venture's stakeholders is key to successfully launching a new technology venture. This course will place emphasis on identifying market problems, evaluating technical solutions, developing product concepts and business models, building an entrepreneurial team, developing a business plan, establishing goals and milestones, funding the venture, and launching and growing the venture. Key issues such as protecting intellectual property, acquiring technology through technology transfer, identifying disruptive vs. sustaining technologies, and crossing the chasm - moving from early adopters of the technology to the mass market, will also be examined.

This course develops the mathematical foundations of information processing with a review of basic linear system theory and one- and two-dimensional transforms. Basic optics will be described from a geometrical and physical point of view. Optical systems used for information processing functions are explored. Fundamental photonic devices used for information processing are discussed, including optical sources, detectors, modulators, and storage and transfer media. With these concepts in mind, the course explains photonic information processing systems. The course discusses examples of photonics systems used to connect, process, and store information contained in signals, images, and data.