GoPhoton!, ECOP’s FP7 initiative to make of photonics a house held word, ended in February with a very positive balance: over 200 activities attended by 450,000 people and that have impacted over 2,000,000 people.
The mission of GoPhoton! was to make a significant contribution to raising awareness about the importance of Photonics, aiming at having impact on young minds, entrepreneurs and society as a whole. GoPhoton! aimed to transmit a critical message across Europe: Photonics is ubiquitous and pervasive, it is a key enabler of the European economy and job creation, and it offers outstanding career and business opportunities. The project addressed these challenges through a series of actions that were developed through ECOP.
The consortium was composed by: ICFO (coordinator), FBH, VUB, IC, POLIMI, IOTA, NUIG and ILC. It spanned two years, being 2014 dedicated to define the activities, create materials and content and plan the Photonic Splashes, and 2015 to implement the activities. Monitoring of previously defined key performance indicators was done throughout the entire project. Furthermore, GoPhoton! strongly involved relevant European stakeholders, seeking synergies with Photonics21, industrial clusters and educational networks, and the International Year of Light in 2015 as well as other EU funded photonics outreach projects.
The GoPhoton! activities happened in Photonics Splashes, periods of intense photonics outreach activity that included all type of activities. These actions aimed to emphasize different aspects of photonics in a way that each one addressed a different set of audiences. These activities included, photonics exhibitions, talks and workshops, congresses for young people, open days, and photonics shows. The Photonics Splashes started in one of the partner cities, and it replicated sub-sequentially throughout 2015 in all other partner cities.