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The 2024 Advanced Textiles Association’s Emerging Technologies (ET) Conference starts Monday, Sept. 23, with a full day dedicated to emerging technologies education and networking. The second day includes classroom education in the morning, transitioning to Advanced Textiles Expo in the afternoon with education continuing on the show floor.
Among the topics to be featured in Monday’s sessions are “Textile Macroelectronics: Architecting Sensate Fabrics Across Scales,” presented by Irmandy Wicaksono, Hybrid Electrical-textile Engineer, Artist and Designer, MIT Media Lab. In this talk, he will explore various methods in sensate fabric development using functional fibers, digital machine knitting, and printed circuits to create e-textiles with tunable electrical and mechanical properties and computational capabilities for applications in HCI, health, musical expression and interactive environments.
Anirudh Sharma, also an MIT Media Lab researcher, will discuss his experience transitioning from research labs to startups on wearable computing, material science, AI and its impact on the fashion and print industry. He will focus on climate impact and CO2-to-new-materials innovations developed at the MIT spinoff Graviky Labs. He will also demonstrate novel approaches, and techniques using advanced sensing techniques combined with Artificial Intelligence, LLMs to interpret and understand information from the physical world.
On Tuesday morning, Jamie Griggs, Hohenstein, and Will Troutman, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP, will present “Greener Chemistry: The Path to Protecting People and the Planet,” discussing the legal and technical considerations that go into a greener chemistry approach. The challenges surrounding sustainability, regulatory and industry compliance require greener chemistry—proactively reducing or eliminating chemical hazards. This means predicting restrictions, preventing hazards from entering supply chains, and strategic testing based on risk.
Also on Tuesday, there will be a biomaterials workshop, “Crafting Biobased Materials for Interactive Interfaces.” However, the workshop is full, and can offer a waiting list only. Eldy Lazaro, Ph.D. student at the ATLAS Institute, CU Boulder, is the presenter. The workshop will teach participants biobased material development and implementation via hands-on explorations and brainstorming activities. It will also include discussion concerning the material’s life cycle, design opportunities for disassembly, and end-of-life of soft electronics and interactive interfaces.
More than 30 additional education sessions will be available on the show floor, beginning at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday and concluding Thursday at 12:30 p.m. These cover a range of topics, including cloud-based technologies, R&D for space age textiles, business acquisitions, “greener” healthcare textiles, innovations on the horizon, a trade and advocacy panel, PFAS challenges, unlocking AI, e-textile challenges and opportunities, and many others. All are open to show floor attendees and exhibitors.
See “ATA’s 2024 Emerging Technologies Conference at Expo” on this site for more conference details or visit https://advancedtextilesexpo.com. Advanced Textiles Expo concludes Thursday, Sept. 26 at 1 pm.