Ynvisible appoints industry leaders to advisory board

 

Ynvisible Interactive Inc. (Vancouver, British Columbia), a company that specialises in creating ultra-low power displays in printed electronics, has announced the creation of an advisory board and the appointment of its first members: Dr Michael Okoroafor, Dr Harlan Byker, and Dr Harri Kopola.

Dr Michael Okoroafor, vice president, global sustainability & packaging innovation at McCormick & Company, is highly acclaimed for his achievements in the consumer packaging industry. On 15 October 2018, he was inducted into the Packaging and Processing Hall of Fame at PACK EXPO International. Okoroafor is an innovation leader and has over 40 patents to his name and a career that, in addition to McCormick, has spanned prominent roles within PPG, Coca-Cola, and Heinz. With 30 years of experience building off his PhD in polymer chemistry from Michigan State University, he has a unique background in working both with colour changing (chromogenic) systems as well as novel packaging materials and concepts, including interactive packaging.

Dr Harlan Byker, founder and CEO of Pleotint, LLC, is a world-leading expert on electrochromism and thermochromism. He has over 30 years of scientific research and development, invention, manufacturing and patent experience. Byker gained his PhD in physical chemistry at Montana State University. He is an inventor and/or co-inventor on 53 US patents. As a research scientist at Battelle Laboratories, Byker invented the chemistry portion of the first commercially successful electrochromic device, an automatic dimming rear view mirror for motor vehicles commercialised by Gentex, a company in he Harlan became a board member and VP of research, before founding Pleotint, a company focused on self-tinting building windows.

Dr Harri Kopola is a pioneer in the printed electronics industry, who started printed electronics research on flexible substrates in the late 1990s within VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, one of Europe’s leading applied technical research centres. He earned his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Oulu. He has publications and patents in various disciplines of electronics, optoelectronics and printed electronics. From 2006-2009, Kopola led VTT’s spearhead programme ‘Center for Printed Intelligence’, and in 2008 headed the founding of the PrintoCent printed intelligence industrialisation community, which to date has produced 26 spin-off companies and linked these to a network of global scale companies. This month, Kopola is retiring from VTT, where his most recent position was VP research in knowledge intensive products and services. At LOPEC Conference 2018, he was appointed fellow of the Organic Electronics Association (OE-A) – regarding his selection, the jury cited his instrumental role in promoting industrialisation of printed electronics internationally.

“ynvisible’s advisory board is meant to provide strategic input and support to the company as we grow our business. Therefore, we are honoured to have such highly acclaimed innovators and industry front-runners as Mike, Harlan and Harri join our advisory board,” says Jani-Mikael Kuusisto, CEO. “Their trailblazing work to build strong collaborative networks across different industries and disciplines has brought ground-breaking innovations to fruition and wide market adoption. They inspire our team and we look forward to their insights.”

Caption: ynvisible aims to strengthen its position as an innovator in ultra-low power displays with the creation of an advisory board (photo: ynvisible)