Dr. Suresh Venkatesan reports

POET TECHNOLOGIES APPOINTS DON LISTWIN TO BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Poet Technologies Inc. has appointed Don Listwin to its board of directors, including roles on both the compensation and audit committees. Concurrently, Todd DeBonis, who served as a director since April, 2015, resigned from the board and has transitioned to a non-fee-based strategic advisory role.

Mr. Listwin has over 30 years of technology investing and management experience, highlighted by a decade at Cisco Systems, where he served as executive vice-president. During his tenure at Cisco, he built several multibillion-dollar lines of business, including the company's service provider line of business that underpins much of today's global Internet infrastructure. More recently, Mr. Listwin served as chief executive officer of both Sana Security and Openwave Systems.

Poet's executive chairman, David Lazovsky, commented: "It is a pleasure to add a senior technology industry veteran of Don's calibre to Poet's board as the company continues the development and commercialization of its next-generation photonic solutions. Don's broad experience in networking and telecommunications is extremely relevant and applicable to both our technology and product roadmaps. Additionally, I'm confident that his deep network of relationships will prove valuable as the company seeks to achieve increased commercial visibility and adoption of its technology."

Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Listwin stated: "I am very pleased to be joining Poet's board of directors at this exciting time for the company and having the opportunity to work with such a deeply experienced team. Integration is the clear path to delivering meaningfully differentiated solutions and economic value in next-generation data communications applications. Poet's unique optical dielectric technology has the potential to revolutionize the photonics market, and I am highly motivated by the opportunity to contribute as the company works toward commercializing its leading-edge technology."

"On behalf of the entire management team, I am very pleased to have Don join POET's board and become a part of our committed pursuit toward innovating photonic solutions for the datacom and sensing markets," said Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, chief executive officer of Poet. "Additionally, we greatly appreciate the valuable perspective and insight that Todd has provided to the company over the last few years, and I personally look forward to working with both Don and Todd in their respective roles going forward."

In addition to Mr. Listwin founding and holding the role of chief executive officer of the Canary Foundation, a non-profit research organization focused on the early detection of cancer, Mr. Listwin currently serves as a director on the boards of AwareX, Calix, D-wave, ischemaView, Robin Systems and Teradici. Previously, he has also served on the boards or been an adviser to well-known companies, including JDS Uniphase, PLUMgrid, Redback Networks, E-TEK Dynamics, the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA), and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

Listwin received a BSEE from the University of Saskatchewan, where he remains active with student engineering entrepreneurial programs. He is also a consulting professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University.

Options grant

The board approved a grant of 468,750 stock options to Mr. Listwin. The options are exercisable for 10 years at a price of 22 cents (18 U.S. cents), being the closing price of the company's shares on Jan. 18, 2018, and will vest quarterly in arrears over the next four quarters.

The options were granted subject to provisions of the company's stock option plan and are subject to the TSX Venture Exchange policies and applicable securities laws. For further details on the company's share capital, refer to the company's financial statements and management discussion and analysis for the three months ended Sept. 30, 2017, which were filed on SEDAR on Nov. 13, 2017.

About Poet Technologies Inc.

Poet Technologies is a developer and manufacturer of optical light source products for the sensing and data communications markets. Integration of optics and electronics is fundamental to increasing functional scaling and lowering the cost of current photonic solutions. Poet believes that its approach to both hybrid and monolithic integration of devices, utilizing a novel dielectric platform and proven advanced wafer-level packaging techniques, enables substantial improvements in device cost, efficiency and performance. Optical engines based on this integrated approach have applications ranging from data centres to consumer products to military applications.

We seek Safe Harbor.