The CONTEXT final event, titled INCONTEX event focused on the future marketplace and forward-looking opportunities for smart textiles and featured inspiring plenary sessions, informative workshops and networking opportunities not only to gain knowledge but meet new business contacts.
Lutz Walter presented the SmartX Community, its activities and objectives, and used this opportunity to also discuss the current state of smart textiles, the potential reasons why nothing has truly taken off at large industrial scale, and in which directions we need to think to overcome these obstacles.
CONTEXT, the European Network to connect research and innovation efforts on Advanced Smart Textiles, has been set in the framework of COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), the longest running European framework. The main objective of CONTEXT is to join efforts at European level to facilitate the market uptake of new advanced textile materials, reducing the gap between research and industry. This goal can only be achieved involving all the major stakeholders of the process: universities, technological centres, industry and end-users under the coordination from one of the main tools which contributes to the improvement of competitiveness and productivity of the different economic sectors in the European environment: the clusters. More information on CONTEXT here.
