ECOC 2017 started with a “Special ECOC 2017 Symposium” in Denmark at DTU, on September 14th-15th 2017, just prior to the main event in Gothenburg. Marco Romagnoli (CNIT) was invited to participate to this special symposium with a talk entitled: “TERABOARD: bandwidth scalable onboard optical interconnection”. The Special ECOC 2017 Symposium addressed major ECOC-related research efforts worldwide, including funding opportunities.