PrintoCent to host InnoFest – showcasing ideas for printed, flexible, hybrid and structural electronics
The annual open idea competition around printed intelligence, PrintoCent InnoFest will take place once again in Nallikari, Oulu, Finland 6-7 June 2019. The PrintoCent community organises this international 2-day event to closely facilitate the development of a multitude of printed, flexible, hybrid, structural electronics solutions.
PrintoCent has a quest to inspire, educate and create opportunities around printed intelligence. To do this, they invite world experts and leading companies exploiting printed intelligence solutions. InnoFest hosts the event for up to 25 teams competing on their ideas, which will be polished with the help of the best researchers (VTT, UO, OUAS & others), company experts and coaching jury. One can participate with an existing team or join a new one in the competition. The participants can be students, researchers and company representatives or anyone looking to stay tuned with the latest technical developments in all business fields. In just two days, one will be able to see how well the printed, flexible, hybrid, structural electronics solutions fit in various business cases and the results have proven to be notable. Companies like Goodwiller, MoveSole and New Cable Corporation being great examples of InnoFest alumni.
“So far teams from Italy, Sweden, Germany, Israel, The Netherlands and Finland have already registered and are looking for new ways to solve their application needs. This clearly shows that printed intelligence is moving from research laboratories to manufacturing scale up, we will soon see electronics everywhere integrated in structures like glass, plastics, laminates,” says Ilkka Kaisto, the father of PrintoCent InnoFest.
Besides ground breaking innovations, printed intelligence also means business growth and the latest estimation is that there will be well over 1000 new industrial jobs in Finland by 2020. The application possibilities are endless as structural electronics create products for Internet of Things, both automotive interior and exterior, windscreens, home appliances, health tech, wearables and smart clothing to mention a few. Multidisciplinary know-how and efficient ways of working together are needed, and this is where PrintoCent excels in supporting its industry cluster members. The future looks bright as there are already well over 350 people working in this field and 100 doing research in the Oulu area.
Like always, InnoFest is free of charge to participate and it will gather about 130 people to bring new printed ideas into future commercial solutions. The competing ideas vary greatly and InnoFest will reward the best ideas on Friday,7 June in the categories best business potential, wildest idea and industry favourite. The jury has 4 members this year: Bengt Christensson and Edward Schneider from Sprit Ventures, Markku Känsäkoski from Ginolis and Pekka Lamminpää from Sanmina.
Caption: Impressions from the last InnoFest (photo: PrintoCent)