The organic LED age is here: Meet the U of T engineers behind OTI Lumionics

Google “OLED,” and you’ll find scores of articles confidently predicting that this is the year of the organic light-emitting diode. Some of those articles are ten years old. Still, there are reasons to believe the OLED age is finally dawning. In fact, engineering alumnus Michael Helander (EngSci 0T7, MSE PhD 1T2) is betting on it. Three years ago, he was a PhD student with an important discovery just published in Science—a rising star who could have had his pick of academic postings. Instead, he gave up a life in research to start a technology company he named OTI Lumionics. The failure rate of technology startups, by some estimates, is 90 per cent.