Teaching optics and photonics at the undergraduate level is essential for building the scientific and technical workforce needed in the Global South. These fields underpin telecommunications, healthcare, environmental monitoring, manufacturing, renewable energy, and emerging quantum technologies. This project aims to strengthen undergraduate optics education through accessible, hands-on learning and to develop local capacity for maintaining, adapting, and innovating in these technologies.

Many developing countries remain dependent on imported technologies and expertise. Optics education offers a low-cost, high-impact pathway to strengthen STEM education, even where advanced laboratory facilities are limited. Its visual and hands-on nature encourages curiosity, creativity, problem-solving, and greater participation of women and other underrepresented groups. Investing in optics and photonics education is therefore an investment in technological independence, local innovation, economic growth, and the scientific workforce needed for the digital and quantum era.

The two-day intense course is tailored for undergraduate and master's level studens who have already taken an equivalent of Electromagnetic Theory I and/or Laser Physics course. 

Project Coordinator and Lecturer: Dr. Imrana Ashraf (Department of Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan)
 
Local Coordinator: Dr. Wanvisa Talataisong (Suranaree University of Technology,  Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand)

This project is supported by Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) located in Nakhon Ratchasima Thailand.