Testimonials from 2016 Smart Fabrics Summit

“The Smart Fabric Summit is a key step in creating the necessary dialogue to make the United States a supply chain and material development leader in this quickly emerging high-tech industry. As an academic representative in the conversation with industry, standard organizations and government, it was terrific to see the overall excitement of all stakeholders. Full credit goes to the U.S. Department of Commerce and IFAI in identifying this need area and putting together a very informative Summit.”

– Dr. Jesse Jur, North Carolina State University

“Kudos to the U.S. Department of Commerce and IFAI for collaborating to host the Smart Fabrics Summit on April 11. PurThread was honored to be among the sponsors of this timely summit, and we salute the excellence with which the staffs of both organizations worked with industry and government experts to unfold a day which was insightful and relevant. The venue, schedule and mix of presentations and panel discussions successfully created an atmosphere of vibrant dialogue and facilitated an ease of networking that is often difficult to achieve for a one-day event. Well done!“

– Lisa Grimes, President and CEO, PurThread Technologies

“Smart Fabrics Summit was an extremely valuable experience for everyone who attended from Drexel University. The program was well-organized; the speakers were insightful and there was ample opportunity to meet like-minded public and private sector partners in the textiles space. Thank you for convening such a terrific group of professionals around a topic that is very important to us and to the future of advanced manufacturing in the U.S.”

– Debbie Buchwald, Drexel University

“It was a surreal experience to see the pillars of the industry – The Honorable Penny Pritzker, US Secretary of Commerce; Joshua Walden, Senior VP and GM of Intel; David Lauren, Executive VP of Ralph Lauren Corporation and Mary Hennessy, President and CEO of the Industrial Fabrics Association International, share their vision of the future of smart fabrics and their impact on commerce in the USA. The leads that we received at our booth were invaluable and could not have been obtained though any other venue, and the connections that we received at the show will also be critical to help us expand our market position. We truly witnessed the launching of a new business model and it was all the doing of, and to the credit of, the Industrial Fabrics Association International.”

– Chris Semonelli, Coated Technical Solutions