EXFO hosts innovation summit

EXFO Inc. the network test, monitoring and analytics experts, held its first-ever Innovation Summit this week in Lac-Beauport, Quebec. The event brought together some 100 members of the EXFO team from offices on four continents. Participants took part in several activities, including a hackathon that was launched by the Deputy Premier, Minister of the Economy, Science and Innovation and Minister responsible for the Digital Strategy, Dominique Anglade. 

The three-day summit welcomed speakers from NASA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Amazon aims to contribute to the future of communications technology and promote EXFO’s leadership with customers at the cutting edge like Apple, Google, and Amazon. Over 95% of the world’s major telecom operators (e.g., Verizon, British Telecom, Bell, Orange) use EXFO test instruments and software to manage and monitor their communications networks.

As an innovation pioneer, EXFO constantly breaks new ground through major acquisitions, recruitment and training of exceptionally skilled people, extensive R&D investments, and original events like the Innovation Summit, where this year’s theme is artificial intelligence and machine learning, according to EXFO CEO Philippe Morin.

“The Innovation Summit initiative is a natural fit for our organization,” Morin says. “When EXFO was founded over 30 years ago, we already had a bold vision: we were convinced that optical fiber was the future of global communications networks. Since then, we’ve constantly reinvented our way of doing things and helped shape industry standards. Today, we’re drawing on our tradition of excellence in innovation to lay the groundwork for the deployment of 5G.”

“The competitiveness of Québec and its businesses depends on our ability to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the digital economy, particularly those offered by information and communications technologies as well as digital technologies and data. EXFO, a leader in innovation, demonstrates Québec’s expertise in these fields, helping to make Québec a most innovative and competitive digital society,” adds Minister Anglade.