Professor Dwight Seferos is one of 12 U of T scientists and engineers to receive a 2018 Strategic Partnership Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
These grants are awarded to researchers who are working alongside policy makers and Canadian companies to transfer knowledge and generate new technology.
Through the Strategic Partnership Grant, Seferos will partner with Ontario-based OTI Lumionics to develop flexible logic circuits. He will receive more than $500,000 in support from the grant.
“NSERC has provided a fantastic opportunity for me to partner with a company that is manufacturing the next generation of flexible and transparent lighting elements,” says Seferos. “Located within the MaRS Discovery District, they have all of the capability to translate U of T breakthroughs into the next generation of electronics.”
The flexible logic circuits that Seferos and OTI Lumionics will be developing will have a range of uses as new types of wearable electronics and personal medical devices are developed.
“We have for some time known through primary market research that flexible, lightweight and transparent electronics will be urgently needed in the future,” says Seferos.
“Over the next 10 years, the hard, rectangular phones, tablets and computers that we’re so used to will be gradually phased out and we will see electronics being seamlessly integrated into products and our lives.”