Demystifying Program
13 - 17 July 2025
Marseille Chanot, Palais des Congrès et des Expositions
Marseille, France
Demystifying: Machine Learning
Sunday, 13 July: 09:00 – 17:00
Machine learning has been successfully applied in many use cases ranging from optical devices to optical networking. Even though there are numerous educational resources available, most do not apply the techniques to problems relevant to the optical field. The gap between theory and practice makes it challenging for early-career engineers and scientists to start applying machine learning for their problems.
Demystifying: Machine Learning – presented by Optica – aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice of applying machine learning to problems relevant to the optical field in an interactive and hands-on way.
Program
The event will include an introduction to machine learning concepts such as supervised, semi-supervised, self-supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. Discussion and use cases and applications for supervised, semi-supervised and unsupervised learning to optical networking will follow. Then, we will move to a discussion of active learning. These concepts will be accompanied by practical implementations of the algorithms presented.
Attendees will be able to execute the implementations provided. Moreover, they will be guided through modifications that will allow the machine learning techniques studied to present better results and/or be applied to different use cases.
Examples will be provided to the attendees in a way that will allow them to run the code in their own workspace. Experimentation on the code provided guided by the instructors will allow the attendees to understand how different techniques are combined to solve a problem. Instructors will also share some pitfalls and mistakes made when applying machine learning, and how they overcame these.
The example code will be written in Python, and the attendees will run their code using Google Collab.
Schedule |
Sunday, |
|---|---|
Part One:
|
|
| Introduction to machine learning | 09:00 - 09:45 |
| Applying supervised learning for performance prediction and estimation | 10:00 - 10:45 |
| Applying semi-supervised and unsupervised learning for anomaly detection | 11:00 - 11:45 |
Part Two:
|
|
| Theoretical introduction into active learning (Gaussian process regression, Bayesian optimization, etc.) | 14:00 - 14:45 |
| Hands-on experience by code execution in Jupyter notebooks | 15:00 - 15:45 |
| Presentation of advanced techniques and applications of active learning (photonic design, optimization of lab experiments, model calibration), Q&A, and final remarks | 16:00 - 17:00 |
Audience
Early-career engineers and scientists from academia or industry with limited or no prior experience with machine learning
Prerequisites
There are no strict prerequisites for the attendees. Attendees need to bring their own laptop, and use their personal Google account to access the hands-on part. No specific software is necessary.
Instructors
Carlos Natalino
Chalmers University of Technology
About the Speaker
Carlos Natalino is a researcher with the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Over the past 7 years he has been applying machine learning techniques to solve various optical networking and security problems. He has co-authored more than 30 papers presenting machine learning solutions to optical network problems. He is the author of the Optical Networking Gym, an open-source toolkit for applying reinforcement learning to optical networking problems. He is a member of Optica and IEEE.
Philipp-Immanuel Schneider
JCMwave
About the Speaker
Philipp-Immanuel Schneider is managing director at JCMwave, a Company that develops Software for the simulation and analysis of photonic devices. His research during the past 7 years focused on machine learning and optimization technologies. He is co-author of more than 20 publications that apply machine learning techniques to problems in photonics and quantum physics.
About the Optica Demystifying Series
The Optica Demystifying series offers introductions to the topics transforming science and engineering today. The objective is to lower the barriers to entry and get you started in the most exciting tools, techniques and areas of research in optics and photonics. Whether you are just starting your career or well along your path, if you are looking for new opportunities, the leading researchers and great teachers in the Optica Demystifying series will help you take that important first step. Look for Demystifying offerings at your next Optica Event.
