In my opinion insider ownership should be increased.

How would you convince new investors to invest in a scenario with a very low insider ownership vs. a scenario with a very high ownership.

Many new investors check the following :

1) cash vs. burn rate (ok now for POET)

2) Market Cap vs. industry peers (also ok comparing with LWLG and Rockley or MVIS)

3) outstanding shares (very high with POET though)

4) insider ownership (very very low on POET, insiders even sold - unfortunately)

5) Institutional ownership (apart from IBK, nothing with POET)

6) Exchange the company shares are trading on (OTC and TSX-Venture - not very convincing to most deep pocket investors)

7) Is a RS on the table or not? (With POET there is - this is negative for many new investors)

8) income and contracts (at the very beginning)

9) earnings forecast (not to detailed currently)

So with all that POET would already fail for many new investors on a high level due diligence check.

We won't change that and attract much new money from those investors which see above as negative and even insiders owning almost no shares.

As I understand many of the above is can't necessarily be changed right now. But if we want not to split in a high ratio (which would be the best for current shareholders- even though mathematically everything remains in theory the same), we should change some of the above at least.

So, POET could uplist to the TSX big board or insiders could increase their ownership by executing options. With management not putting themselves into the same position as shareholders and not willing to have their stake in the company (not options - change them to actual shares to increase owned %-rate), how would new investors see that? 

I do have some other companies (BIO now mainly) where insider ownership is around 20-40%. And this is seen as very positive.

Not saying this will be trick to change things. But if insider buying pushes down the shareprice considerable when they sell, the opposite should be possible when they either buy or convert.

Many shareholders have as single entity more shares than all insiders together.

All IMO. Not complaining, just suggesting how the tide could potentially change, as it sounds sometimes management is open for ideas.