#Associations

2024-07-24

Fifth transnational ADDTEX meeting in Prato

From 1 to 5 July 2024, the fifth member meeting of ADDTEX took place in Prato at PIN s.c.r.l. Educational and Scientific Services for the University of Florence. Parallel to the meeting of the project partners and in the same building in Piazza Giovanni Ciardi, 25, PIN organised a textile innovation boot camp with students from Sweden, Spain, Romania, Ireland, Italy and Portugal.

Joint photo of the ADDTEX partners and the summer school students in front of the entrance to the PIN in Prato. Photo: ADDTEX, Alessandro de Rosa

Preparations for workshops and webinars are in full swing

The meeting of the ADDTEX project partners served to find out about the current results of the individual partners of the EU Erasmus+ project and to discuss further activities. Following the meetings in Terrassa, Spain, Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal, Limerick, Ireland and Athens, Greece, the fifth meeting took place in the Italian textile centre of Prato in Tuscany. The IVGT e.V. is one of the 12 ADDTEX partners as a major textile trade association in Germany and was once again present in Prato.

Summer school for students

The textile innovation bootcamp in the form of a summer school was organised by PIN and involved the participation of 25 students and 5 trainers from the universities of Boras (Sweden), UPC (Spain), PIN (Italy) and TUS (Ireland) and was offered as an in-depth supplement to the hackathons organised in May 2024.

The aim of the bootcamp was to foster innovation and collaboration and equip students with knowledge and skills to promote green, digital and smart transformation in the textile industry. The methodology used included face-to-face teaching, group work, company visits and field reports and was inspired by design thinking. Social moments were also incorporated to promote team spirit. This resulted in demonstrators made from materials such as sensor fabrics, e-textiles, knitwear and membranes, which were presented at the end together with exemplary business plans and marketing plans. In line with ADDTEX's focus, attention was paid to sustainability across the entire product life cycle through to recycling concepts. The students had acquired the necessary basic information in advance using the 45 training videos and training units from the free and public Smart, Digital and Green Skills Academy at https://addtex.eu.

Design Thinking

Design thinking is an interactive process that uses empathy to understand the users at the centre of the product or solution being developed. It is a solution-focused approach that allows people to develop a variety of ideas that can be quickly prototyped, tested and improved. For these reasons, it is often used by teams that want to innovate and solve complex challenges.

In the first phase of the bootcamp, students had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the design thinking process and learn about smart textiles, eco-design principles and digitalisation in manufacturing. They also had the opportunity to get in touch with real-life examples (Knitronix and Sensing Tex) and visit the companies Comistra and Rifinizione Nuove Fibre SpA, which are based in the Prato area.

Fabrizio Tesi from Comistra shows the Summer Scholl students recycled wool fibres. Photo: ADDTEX, Katja Brencic

In the second phase of the process, the students began the creation process of their product, also familiarising themselves with the Lego® Serious Play® method. In the third phase of the boot camp, ideas were developed and prototypes were built. Finally, the students were instructed on how to prepare their pitch, which was then delivered on the last day of the bootcamp. The pitches started with a short introduction about the team and the product and ended with the presentation of the business model. The different teams showed a high level of motivation at work and several brilliant ideas emerged. Overall, the bootcamp was a great success for the AddTex project.