Techtextil North America And Texprocess Americas — Innovation Award Winners Announced

The 2023 Innovation Awards conferred at Techtextil North America and Texprocess Americas honored the industry’s cutting-edge developments. The awards ceremony recognized textile technologies that exhibited new concepts, technologies, applications, sustainability approaches and digitalization.

Kristy Meade, vice president of Technical Textiles & Technology Shows for Messe Frankfurt Inc., expressed her pleasure that the awards were incorporated with the Atlanta editions of the collocated shows. “We are happy to bring the Innovation Awards to the U.S. editions of Techtextil North America & Texprocess Americas which will enable and encourage new market developments and is a testament to the ingenuity and vision of the brands participating at these shows.”

Award winners in a variety of categories were announced during a press conference held on the first day of the event. Recipients were:

• New Concept Winner — Henderson Sewing Machine Co. Inc. and Matsuya R&D for The Intelligent Robot Sewing Machine with Digital Image Processing System

• New Technology Winner SPEC and Svegea of Sweden for the SVEGEA EC-450XF

• New Application Winner Pathfinder Cutting Technology for

FabricPro: Revolutionizing Fabric Spreading with Innovative Safety Features and Improved Operator Ergonomics

• New Product Winner

Stratasys for the Stratasys J850™ TechStyle™ direct-to-textile 3D printer

• New Approaches on Sustainability & Circular Economy Winner — Henderson Sewing Machine Co. Inc. and Twine Solutions Ltd. for the Thread Digital Dyeing System TS-1800

• New Technologies on Sustainability & Recycling Winner — Germany-based Dürkopp Adler GmbH for the M-TYPE DELTA e-con

• New Technology & Digitalization Winner — SEDDI for SEDDI Textura: Real Fabrics Digitized Brilliantly with AI

Michael McDonald, SPESA president, emphasized that the Innovation Awards aim to bring solutions to the forefront of the industry and create a market for new developments. “While the award-winning technologies will create market opportunities and boost business, the commitment to product excellence and market innovation that the award winners and everyone who submitted entries have shown is what will drive market impulses,” McDonald noted.

Attendee Rick Fowler of Youngone Corp. praised the symposium, expressing his satisfaction with the industry’s commitment to tackling sustainability concerns that was evident from the sessions.

Tech Talks

The Techtextil North America Tech Talks, presented on the show floor, were hosted by the Hohenstein Institute America’s Casey Strauch and Melissa Sharp with NC State’s Zeis Textiles Extension. The complimentary presentations, demonstrations, and discussions on technical advancements and textile applications covered sustainability, technology-driven workforce development, and the future of technical design topics, among other topics.

Xochil Herrera Scheer of The Chicago Pattern Maker managed and moderated the Texprocess Americas Tech Talks. She commended the event’s success and the positive interactions. “I had an awesome week of insightful conversations with industry leaders at Texprocess Americas,” Scheer said. “I am so proud of this series. All the planning and preparation really paid off when I looked out into the full audiences — even standing room overflow —and seeing interest flow into side chats with speakers afterwards moving into exhibit booths. What a successful show!”

Career And Training Center

A new addition to this year’s exhibitions was the Career and Training Center, which combined professional development with practical training. The Textile Technology Center at Gaston College provided valuable resources related to the industry’s career landscape and networking tips. Furthermore, hands-on training sessions were conducted by Sewn Products Equipment and Suppliers of the Americas (SPESA) association members, facilitating machine repair and maintenance training, as well as the use of augmented reality tools for scalable growth in the industry.

Innovation Awards

The Innovation Awards recognized unique concepts and hard work in textile technologies across various application areas. The winners represented innovative technologies, concepts and sustainability approaches (see sidebar).

“We were thrilled to introduce the Innovation Awards to the American market this year and acknowledge the hard work each of our award winners has made to develop and implement new products, technologies, growth strategies and other remarkable contributions to this industry,” Meade said.

Techtextil North America will take place next in Raleigh, N.C., August 20-22, 2024. The collocated Texprocess Americas and Techtextil North America will return to Atlanta from May 6-8, 2025. These future events promise to build upon the success of the 2023 editions. TW