In4act took the opportunity to present its latest research and expand its network connections with industrial leaders during the biggest Central Eastern European industrial fair which took place on 8-10 November in Warsaw – V IndustryWeek Warsaw 2021 (https://industryweek.pl/en/closer-to-the-industry/). Apart from active networking and setting up an In4act booth which served as promotion hub and meeting point with fair participants, In4act team members contributed to the conference The Instruments of Industry 4.0. ERA Chair Prof. Takis Damaskopoulos provided a keynote speech opening the second day of the event dedicated to shape the Vision of Education for Future Engineers of Industry 4.0, “Skills for Industry 4.0: Exploring emerging compacts of hard and soft skillset profiles – underlying gaps and questions” (https://industryweek.pl/en/engineers-education-vision/). Dr. Anna Sadowska and Dr. Manuel Morales took part in the discussion panels on actual challenges and good practices in novel industry-driven education programs across Europe and following discussions with the audience which consisted mainly of industrial and business participants.
Participation in IndustryWeek Warsaw 2021 was a unique opportunity during the Covid-19 crisis to significantly expand the In4Act business networks with key industry 4.0 stakeholders including Siemens, Bosh, Schneider, Kubler, Samsung, 3M, Astor, Fanuc/Alnea, Metal Processing Cluster (among another 110 participating companies). These discussions have opened new paths of collaboration with In4act on data exchanges regarding research on Industry 4.0 but also greater access to industrial facilities to explore Industry4.0 actual business cases, for instance at companies like Astor (Cracow), 3M (Wroclaw), Fanuc/Alnea (Olsztyn), Factory of the Future’ Laboratory of Bosh (Warsaw),and Samsung (Warsaw)
The event also provided the opportunity to discuss concrete steps forward toward establishing a collaborative cross-border educational program and training development for engineers (together with Astor Academy, Politechnika Rzeszowska and Aerospace cluster among others ), collaboration on joint research proposals to be submitted to the Horizon Europe program with industry and other EU projects presented at the event (I4MS).