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Founder Profile: JP Hansen
John Paul “JP” Hansen is a multi-patented inventor in the fields of optical networking, signal encoding, and photonic computing. A first-generation college graduate and recipient of the 2008 Gold-Level President’s Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence, he currently serves as a laser safety officer and CEO of Hansen Photonics Incorporated (HPI).
1. An Early Start in Photonics
Hansen’s career in photonics began during his sophomore year of high school. Self-taught through the RP Photonics Encyclopedia and extensive academic research, he maintained a regular correspondence with LIGO outreach coordinator Dale Ingram and researchers later involved in the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of gravitational waves. Before graduating from Raisbeck Aviation High School, he and research partner H. Lynn Baker received the "Most Innovative" award at the "Imagine Tomorrow" Tri-State Science Fair, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
2. The Axon
At the University of Idaho, Hansen conducted simultaneous undergraduate research within the luminescent materials laboratory and original materials science research with the nanotechnology research group. In 2015, at age 19, he presented his ongoing research at the American Physical Society (APS) conference.
3. The Founding of Hansen Photonics
Following graduation, Hansen dedicated his efforts to refining the Axon technology. Lockdown only intensified his efforts. A successful field test lasting from February to July 2020 demonstrated the prototype's ability to maintain gigabit-speed internet connectivity for a commercial entity over several months.
After lockdown, he transitioned to a studio apartment, which he immediately converted into a photonics workshop with his bed in the corner.
Hansen, in his lab, on the day of the APS conference
The studio apartment optics workshop, featuring the earliest version of his multiplexing device.
Here, he designed and built the foundational technology for his next two patents: a new optical multiplexer for fiber, and an optical computer processor.
In August 2021, he founded Hansen Photonics Incorporated to formalize his dream of making the Axon useful and accessible to data centers and telecom companies within the United States.
Returning to the University of Idaho for a week of live demonstrations and 25 meetings, he tested his gigabit-speed prototype by providing internet for the University’s “Bloomberg terminal” for high-speed trading.
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At this point, he still struggled daily with the after-effects of his mysterious college illness. He was 95 lbs.
4. Beyond Telecom Lasers
By late 2023, Hansen had performed four successful field tests, finding that the Axon could transmit gigabit-speed internet signals over laser beams with extremely high fidelity, fire over long ranges, and expand the capacity of telecommunication beams just as he’d hoped. But it didn’t increase internet speeds --a point the second of his two test candidates identified.
This was the third hurdle: He realized that the telecom industry relied on fiber, and his work with long-range laser communicators represented only a very small niche. He had to make his transceivers work in fiber cables, and he needed to provide a specialized networking card that could carry a faster signal (or more signals) to each client, and bridge the gap between his telecom beams and practical, everyday infrastructure. This meant specialized software, custom circuit boards, and custom hardware protocols.
Fortunately, the work in the studio apartment workshop had prepared him for just such an eventuality.
5. Expanding Fiber Capacity
In early 2024, Hansen’s health finally began improving. Through 2025, Hansen designed and tested prototype fiber transceivers and receivers based on his earlier patents. They could run through several kilometers of fiber, re-use existing wavelengths, and could scale to be even faster than his original telecom lasers. Even better, they left existing fiber signals alone. He could expand fiber capacity! He had the data, he had the plan for scaling, and had market interest in the form of letters of intent.
Hansen decided that this was the time to start reaching out for funding.
6. Momentum
Today, he has secured four granted patents and developed a digital architecture currently running on a physical FPGA silicon prototype. Under his leadership, HPI has transitioned from a workshop in a studio apartment to an emergent telecommunications design firm, ready to scale and deploy disruptive hardware. Hansen continues to direct the development of the Axon’s fiber-based gigabit-speed prototype while managing the company’s strategic expansion and intellectual property portfolio.
He lives in Washington with his loving wife, Michaela and two cats: Monty and Jinkies.
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