Professor Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-born American electronic engineer and inventor, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology. Professor Nakamura in the Department of Materials and in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, also holds the Cree Endowed Chair in Solid State Lighting & Displays. Professor Nakamura is regarded as the inventor of the blue LED, a major breakthrough in lighting technology. He is a recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources." He is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He is a recipient of numerous international honours including the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize, The Harvey Award (2009), the 2014 Order of Culture Award in Japan, the 2015 Global Energy Prize, the Technology & Engineering Emmy Award (2012), the 2018 Zayed Future Energy Prize, the 2020 National Academy of Science (NAS) Award for the Industrial Application of Science, and the 2021 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Dato’ Dr Mohd Sofi Osman was born in Penang. Received his primary and secondary education in Penang before pursuing his engineering degree at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He is married with three children.

Dato’ Dr Mohd Sofi Osman joined Intel in 2015 with the acquisition of Altera Corporation, where he was the Vice President and Managing Director and led Worldwide Operations and Engineering for the Asia Pacific region since 2012. Before joining Altera, he had a 25-year career at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), culminating in his role as Corporate Vice President and Managing Director of AMD Penang. He holds a patent in the field of the semiconductor manufacturing processes and has published papers on continuous improvement projects in backend semiconductor manufacturing. He retired from Intel in July 2016 after spending almost 30 years in the Semiconductor Industry. In 2018, he came out from retirement to work for Lumileds as Vice President and Managing Director of Lumileds Malaysia until June 2020.

Dato’ Dr Mohd Sofi Osman was in the Board of Directors at University Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) since the organization was still known as KUKUM. He was the past Chairman of the board for University Malaysia Perlis and University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia.  He was also the Adjunct Professor at University Technology Mara (UiTM) Shah Alam and University Science Malaysia (USM).

He was the past Chairman for Penang Skills Development Centre (PSDC). He was also the past President of the Free Industrial Zone Penang Company Association (Frepenca).

He is currently the Advisor to Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science & Technology (CREST) Board, a member of the CEO Faculty Program. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Nano Optoelectronics Research and Technology (INOR), University Science Malaysia with the mission of accelerating the research collaboration between INOR and industry players as well as assisting the advancement of research capabilities at INOR that are in line with industry’s needs.

Boon S. Ooi (Fellow, U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI), OSA, SPIE, and IoP) is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAUST. His research interest includes the study of III-V and III-Nitride-based materials and devices and their applications to optical sensors and optical communications. He is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

Prof. Tan received his B.E. (Hons) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Melbourne in 1992 and PhD in Materials Engineering from the Australian National University in 1997. He has been the past recipient of the Australian Research Council Postdoctoral, QEII and Future Fellowships. He has published/co-published over 500 journal papers and 9 book chapters. According to Google Scholar, his h-index is 63 with over 19,000 citations. He is also a co-inventor of 6 US and 2 Australian patents related to optoelectronics, photonics and photocatalysis. His research interests include epitaxial growth of low-dimensional compound semiconductors, nanostructured optoelectronic devices and ion-implantation processing of compound semiconductors for optoelectronic device applications. Prof. Tan is a Fellow of the IEEE and was the Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE Nanotechnology Council (2016 & 2017) and IEEE Photonics Society (2016-2017).

Dr. Steven P. DenBaars is a Professor of Materials and Co-Director of the Solid-State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center (SSLEEC) at the University of California Santa Barbara. In 2005 he was appointed the Mitsubishi Chemical Chair in Solid State Lighting and Displays. Specific research interests include the growth of wide-bandgap semiconductors (AlGaInN based), and their application to Blue LEDs, Micro LED Displays, UV to visible laser diodes, high power and RF electronic devices. Prof. DenBaars has been active in entrepreneurship, having helped co-found 3 start-up companies in the field of optoelectronics and electronics. He received the IEEE Fellow award in 2005, Aron Kressel Award from IEEE Photonics Society, National Academy of Engineering Member (2012), National Academy of Inventors Fellow (2014), Quantum Device Award ISCS (2021), Central Coast Innovation Award(2021) and the Nakamura Award in Functional Materials from the AAFM Conference (2021). Prof. DenBaars has authored or co-authored over 980 technical publications, 350 conference presentations, and is highly cited with over 85,000 citations and an h-index of 144.

Dr Wei Sea Chang received her PhD from the National University of Singapore. She is now the Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering (Mechanical), Monash University Malaysia. She is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Research Center for Intelligent Medical Devices, Ming Chi University of Technology, Taiwan since 2018. Her research focuses on functional electronic materials for energy-related applications, with particular emphasis on epitaxial thin film and correlated electron systems. She has extensive experience in the use of scanning probe microscopy to understand the physics of materials at the micro- and nanoscale.

James S. Speck is a Distinguished Professor in the Materials Department at the University of California Santa Barbara.  He received as Bachelors of Science and Metallurgical Engineering in 1983 and his S.M. and Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985 and 1989, respectively.  He joined UCSB in 1990 as an Asst. Professor.  Speck’s early work focused on epitaxial oxide films on semiconductors, ferroelectric thin films, and strain relaxation in highly misfitting epitaxial systems.  He has worked extensively on the materials science of GaN and related alloys.  Major aspects of his work on nitrides include elucidating basic growth modes and defect generation, the development of MBE growth of GaN, and the development of nonpolar and semipolar GaN, revealing the nonradiative processes in GaN LEDs, and a large body of early work on β-Ga₂O₃ .  He was the recipient of the Quantum Device Award from the International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors and the IEEE Photonics Society – Aron Kressel Award.  He is an inaugural Fellow of the Materials Research Society, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Tan Swee Tiam received his B.Eng. and PhD degrees from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2003 and 2007, respectively. From 2007 to 2010, he was with the Institute of Microelectronics, A*STAR, Singapore, where he spearheaded the ZnO thin film research by the world-first commercial MOCVD system. In 2010, he was instrumental in founding the LUMINOUS! Centre of Excellence for Semiconductor Lighting and Displays at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and to oversee the research activities. He is a recipient of the 2020 Returning Expert Programme by TalentCorp Malaysia and returned to his home country joining Xiamen University Malaysia as Associate Professor and Assistant Dean (Research and Industrial Collaboration) at School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia. He also serves as the Founding Director of Kelip-kelip! Center of Excellence for Light Enabling Technologies, Xiamen University Malaysia. He is a recipient of the 2022 National Outstanding Researcher Award. He has more than 18 years of research experience on optoelectronic epitaxial materials, devices, and physics and has successfully executed several large-scale research projects (>10 projects, ~US$ 40 million). He published over 111 journal publications with an h-index of 43. His scientific research work has generated a strong IP portfolio (> 30 international patents) and a spin-off company.