Jeff Yurek is a former creative professional turned marketer passionate about storytelling and technology. He is currently Vice President of Marketing at Nanosys, Inc. in Silicon Valley, Calif., and serves as the Vice Chair of Marketing for the Society for Information Display. Here's an interview we conducted with Jeff towards Display Week 2023.
Hello Jeff! Can you tell us what to expect from SID Display Week 2023?
Display Week is the best place to experience and learn about cutting-edge display technologies and applications. The program for Display Week 2023 is packed as always with valuable courses, technical talks, business presentations, and amazing technology demos.
A look at Display Week 2023 by the numbers:
- Display Week will feature 87 technical sessions consisting of 349 oral presentations, 169 poster presentations, and 99 invited papers.
- SID will present five four-hour short courses on Sunday, May 21. Hear from leaders in their respective fields who will bring an international perspective to information displays.
- Monday Seminars present lectures on diverse topics related to electronic information displays and applications. These seminars are tutorial in nature and provide information at three levels: foundations of the topic, recent technical advances, and projection of future trends.
- The Display Week Exhibition of display components and systems will allow attendees to see the latest innovative products from leading companies in the industry. Currently, we have nearly 200 exhibitors from around the world – but we still have room for more!
This year, we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of Display Week in Los Angeles, where Display Week began. Looking back on six decades of incredible innovations in display technology, there have been so many firsts at Display Week, including key developments in LCDs, HDTV, plasma, OLEDs, quantum dots, and microLEDs to name a few. Those amazing industry-disrupting hardware technology breakthroughs will always be part of Display Week’s DNA and, if history is any guide, I’m sure we’ll see some at this year’s show.
Displays are also continuing to evolve and have really emerged as the primary human interface that enriches and facilitates user-device interaction. Today, displays have become an indispensable part of human life, delivering entertainment, communication, transportation, education, productivity, healthcare, and more. The role the display plays in these applications continues to evolve too. They are increasingly becoming the primary interface for user interaction in a wide range of devices. Be it computers, mobile devices, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets, medical equipment, smartwatches, automotive infotainment systems, or other products, the display has transcended its conventional role of simply presenting visual content on a screen.
The people, technologies, and companies you find at Display Week are a sort of nexus of these new products and experiences. It’s an exciting time to be interested in displays and I can’t wait to see what’s next at Display Week!
What part of the event are you personally most excited about? Be it a track, forum, meeting or any other part?
It’s too hard to pick one favorite so I hope you’ll indulge me with my top three events for Display Week 2023.
First, there’s nothing I love more than a great technology demo so, for me personally, the exhibition floor is really the heart of the Display Week experience. Walking the floor at Display Week, you know that you will see something you’ve never seen before. In 2022, some of my favorite demos were the huge range of amazing microLED displays and an incredible preview of technologies that would become 2023 WOLED and QD-OLED TV products from some of the biggest brands in the world.
Second, as a display marketer, I never miss the Business Conference at Display Week. There’s just an insane amount of value in the presentations shared at this event by both analysts and companies. I know there will be great, actionable data that I can use throughout the year to drive decision-making and, if I’m being honest, make me look just a little smarter in front of my management and board!
Last, I’m really excited to check out the new Imaging & Vision Special Event. We’ll talk a bit more about this later in the interview but I think this will be a fascinating event that really showcases the future of displays at the sort of intersection of software, AI, sensing, and hardware.
What do you expect the turnout to be this year? How did the global pandemic affect DW?
We see attendance really picking up and returning to pre-pandemic levels. International attendees, especially from China, are back in a big way this year and that’s really driving a return to growth. I’m personally excited to reconnect with many people in the display industry from around the globe whom I still haven’t seen in a few years!
What are the main differences between an online event, like the ones held during the pandemic, and a physical one?
First, I think the SID team did an admirable job standing up and developing a couple of truly compelling virtual events on short notice during the pandemic. It was a huge effort in the face of an unprecedented challenge.
That said, Display Week is all about the in-person experience and there’s really nothing else like it. Seeing is believing and a picture or video just cannot capture the experience of seeing or touching or wearing a cutting-edge display. I think this is one of the primary reasons you find such a great mix of high-quality attendees from both the business and technical sides of the display industry at the show.
Are there any new additions to this year's event?
Absolutely! I’m really excited to check out the new Imaging & Vision Special Event on the Thursday of Display Week.
Today, displays are so much more than the latest, greatest flat panel technology. Display vendors are increasingly offering top-of-the-line products with added software, algorithms, and capabilities to further enhance the user experience. This includes AI for enhanced image processing and deeper immersion, as well as intelligence to anticipate user intention and enable intuitive interactions.
Display Week is evolving to be a place to learn about these adjacent technologies. This event will highlight the “I” in SID with several great talks that bring together cutting-edge display hardware, sensors, XR, software, and AI. Speakers include representatives from companies doing groundbreaking work in these areas such as Meta, Microsoft, and Sony. It’s a compelling agenda and I’m super excited to attend and learn more about some of these areas to which I’ve had less exposure.
There is a lot of buzz around new technologies like AR/VR and microLEDs. What are the nascent technologies you are most excited about and why?
As you mentioned, there’s an exciting race among emissive display technologies vying for a chance to unseat LCD as the display technology for most applications. I think we’ll see that race play out in a new way at Display Week this year with a fantastic array of papers and demos showcasing the latest developments for OLEDs, microLEDs, and emissive quantum dots. OLEDs continue to improve at an impressive rate, and I think we’ll see microLEDs and emissive QD reach a new level this year as they close in on commercialization.
Another thread I’m fascinated by is the amazing work going on in new form factors for displays like holographic displays and flexible, stretchable, or rollable displays. These technologies open the door for displays to be deployed in so many new and interesting applications. There are quite a few noteworthy papers and I’m sure we’ll see some compelling demos as well.
Perhaps the best advice I can give if you are interested in buzzy, truly nascent technologies, is to check out the I-Zone at Display Week. The I-Zone is a special exhibit area where participants unveil technology prototypes, proofs of concept, and new products that have been on the market no more than six months prior to Display Week. Participation is limited to start-ups, small companies, academic institutions, and educational organizations. I always find something unexpected here.
Thank you Jeff! I am also looking forward to a great event this year!