Smart Fabrics Summit 2018

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Registration Opens November 2017!

Smart Fabrics: Getting Smarter

Emerging Trends in Research, Technology and Public Policy

Advances in technology have brought together the apparel, technology, and textile industries to develop new capabilities in fabrics with the potential to change how athletes, patients, soldiers, first responders, and everyday consumers interact with their clothes and other textile products.

Known as “smart fabrics,” these new high-tech products have the ability to interact with their user or the environment, including tracking and communicating data about their wearer or environment to other devices through embedded sensors and conductive yarns. The applications for these new capabilities are broad with most smart fabric product development currently seen in the fields of defense, sports/fitness, health, and public safety.

Reaching the market’s full potential will require not just overcoming technical challenges but also bridging differences in how these distinct industries approach product development and addressing various public policy issues, including trade policy.

To foster greater collaboration between the U.S. apparel, technology, and textile industries and to identify the public policies that could accelerate the design and manufacture of smart fabrics products by U.S. companies, the Department of Commerce in partnership with the Industrial Fabrics Association International will host the “Smart Fabrics: Getting Smarter” Summit on Monday, April 24, 2018. This event will build on the success of the 2016 Smart Fabrics Summit and highlight emerging trends and new technology in this growing market.

Through a day of panel discussions and industry demonstrations, the Summit will:

  1. Bring together industries that need to collaborate in order for the emerging smart fabrics industry to meet its full potential and accelerate its development by U.S. manufacturers;
  2. Improve mutual understanding of the needs of private sector industries and the roles of public sector agencies; and
  3. Spur original thinking among public and private sector organizations about how new or existing policies affect current and future smart fabrics products.

The issues that will be explored at the Smart Fabrics Summit include: (1) research and development funding, (2) intellectual property, (3) standards, (4) data security and privacy, and (5) product development trends.

The Smart Fabrics Summit will feature an exciting series of lively panel discussions on urgent policies affecting the development of the smart fabrics industry and demonstrations of innovative new smart fabrics products by private companies. Below is a general outline of the Summit’s agenda with speakers and presenters still to be finalized.

  • 7:45am

    Registration & Continental Breakfast

  • 8:25am

    Welcome & Opening Remarks

  • 8:30am

    Programming

  • 10:30am

    Coffee & Networking Break

  • 10:45am

    Programming

  • 12:15pm

    Seated Lunch & Networking Break

  • 1:45pm

    Programming

  • 4:30pm

    Coffee and Networking Break

  • 4:45pm

    Programming

  • 5:45pm

    Concluding Remarks

  • 5:50pm

    Networking Reception

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004

Hotels near the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center:

JW Marriott Washington DC
1331 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004
Site | 202-393-2000

InterContinental The Willard Washington DC
1401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004
Site | 1-800-863-7818

The W Washington DC
515 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20004
Site | 202-661-2400

Washington Marriott at Metro Center
775 12th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
Site | 202-737-2200

Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square
806 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
Site | 202-730-8800

Courtyard by Marriott Washington Convention Center
900 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20004
Site | 202-638-4600

Monaco Washington DC, a Kimpton Hotel
700 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20004
Site | 202-628-7177

Renaissance Washington DC
999 Ninth Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
Site | 202-898-9000

For more information on sponsorship, please contact:
Casey Strauch, cmstrauch@ifai.com, 651-225-6904.

For more information on sponsorship, please contact:
Casey Strauch, cmstrauch@ifai.com, 651-225-6904.