3 minute read
WE’RE MISSING DIVERSITY
Nora Toure, Director for Sales and Service Factory Operations at Fast Radius and founder of Women in 3D Printing, on supply chain and the importance of diverse teams and perspectives in AM.
TCT: Fast Radius has been recognized as a world leading ‘digital factory’ for its on-demand manufacturing services. Have you seen much evidence of this increased demand for supply chain flexibility through your customers since the pandemic?
NT: Absolutely. If anything, it accelerated the adoption for flexible manufacturing solutions and that includes additive manufacturing obviously but not only. I think it’s also the idea of being able to have a one-stop shop where we can have additive but also CNC and injection and cast urethane in the same place.
But not only at Fast Radius, I could already see that at [ondemand AM company] Ivaldi because I made this switch last year in the middle of all of this, so I got to see two different companies. But even the people who are reaching out to me through Women in 3D Printing, the questions they have are more oriented towards on-demand manufacturing and flexible manufacturing solutions.
TCT: You’ve worked across many different areas of AM. From your experience, are there any additional challenges you think we face in the industry in order for the technology to reach its potential?
NT: I still think we’re missing diversity but not only diversity in terms of gender diversity, I think also missing diversity in representation of any group and also in terms of backgrounds. We all have very different backgrounds and we should embrace that more. I do see some sort of a trend to close the industry sometimes and I don’t like it. I would rather see us opening it more. It’s okay if you don’t have an engineering background, it’s okay if you don’t have 10 years’ experience in additive manufacturing for you to get started because none of us who are where we are now had that experience when we first started. That’s what made this industry and this technology move forward so quickly [...] because we innovate and we have diversity of thought in the same room.
TCT: Women in 3D Printing has grown into a truly global outfit. What’s your take on how the gender gap in the industry has evolved in that time?
We’re starting now to gather data but it’s only been a few years. We don’t have enough background and history to really compare. What we can say, though, is that we probably increased the visibility of the women in the industry but I’m not exactly sure that we increased the number of women joining the industry. And those are two different things. So, our goal is really to promote the women who are already in the industry to encourage more women to join this industry. This is now going through some of the initiatives we’re putting together this year, [like] Women in 3D Printing Next Gen. I think we still have a long way to go with encouraging more women to join the industry and for that also, we need to be able to capture data better. We’re not suited for that just yet. Neither are we as an industry. So this is ongoing work with quite a few partners to make that happen.
TCT: You recently hosted your first TIPE conference with an all-female line-up. What lasting message do you hope the success of this first conference has on the industry? NT: We have perfectly capable women in the industry who are innovating and who have a lot to say. We had a lot of positive feedback on the quality of the talks and the diversity of backgrounds because, I know it was female only but, we had women from all over the world and with different backgrounds. That was refreshing. The key message is we have over 150 women who are here, available and more than happy to share their work on stage.
Listen to the interview in full: mytct.co/NoraToure
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
