Category Archives: Events

Inside 3D Printing New York 2014 Recap

One of the main events of the year in 3D printing took place last week in New York. Part of Mediabistro’s global tradeshow series Inside 3D Printing found it’s way back home to New York for the second time in it’s history. The first show hosted over 3000 visitors over two days, and this year things were set to be bigger – a lot bigger. The latest edition happened in Berlin last month and was praised by all the people I met who had attended.

I don’t even know where to begin, as I am still feeling a little light headed, not only over an incredible show, but also due to two 30 hour flights within seven days and 11 hours time difference.

Our trip started 2am in Bangkok, from where we took the first flight to Dubai. Quite standard flight, nothing really to report – basic Emirates stuff. The second leg to New York was with the Airbus 380, and I have to say that it is quite an amazing airplane! Flying economy was actually like flying business class with some less respected carriers. Finally landed safe and sound in New York and felt the +15 degrees (+30 in Bangkok…) in my every bone while waiting for a taxi.

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Inside 3D Printing New York 2014 Preview

While we are preparing for the Inside 3D Printing New York, I thought I’d write my views on what is to be expected. The show takes place 2-4 April at Javits Convention Center in New York City, and this year’s visitor numbers are estimated to be very high. This is definitely my 3D printing highlight show of the year.

Compared to last year, one of the new features for this year is The Maker Summit & Pavilion, which caters the DIY community. The Maker Pavilion is a special section of the trade show floor aimed for consumers, prosumers and makers. The Maker Summit is the conference part consisting of maker and new comer -aimed speaking sessions. As the home 3D printer market and DIY community are growing rapidly along the 3D printing industry, these two will surely be visitor magnets.

Another new add-on for this year’s edition is the workshop sessions that take place during the first day of the show. The workshops cover four topics this year:

Desktop 3D Printers – From Start to Finish,
From CAD to Scanning: Introduction to Design,
Reshaping Manufacturing: Understanding the 3D Printing Process
Tools of Creation and The Future of Retail

The workshops are a great way to gain more hands on experience about 3D printing, and I personally am the most interested to see how these will be received.

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Bangkok Street Show 2013

Lumpini park filled up last weekend with people. It’s a quite busy park over the weekends normally, but last weekend a street performance festival called Bangkok Street Show 2013 took place there. I had seen some random street shows previously, but the whole culture behind it was quite new to me.

Bangkok Street Show 2013

Street performance or buskers festival as it is also known, brings to together street performers of music, theater, dance, juggling, clowning, magic etc. There is a level of interaction with the audience and humor plays a key part, after all the purpose is to entertain. The performances usually last about 20-25 minutes. At the end of the show the artists expect to get money tips from the audience, and usually the funnier or better they are, the more they get. Giving money is not compulsory, but highly appreciated. Even a small sum such as 20B (0.70USD) did seem to do the trick here in Bangkok.

The Bangkok Street Show 2013 had a full two-day program of performers in nine stages, which were set all over Lumpini park. There was no admission fee to enter, so as you can imagine the event had attracted quite a number of people, blocking the foot paths and making it very difficult for the Sunday joggers to do their exercise.

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6th EBAC Meeting and 10th annual APBF 2013 in Bangkok

UNESCAP EBAC APBF

The 6th and my first EBAC meeting took place on Monday followed by the one and half day 10th annual Asia Pacific Business Forum. The great event got kickstarted on Sunday at the British Club in Bangkok, where we gathered together with the Connectivity Task Force lead by Barbara Meynert. It was also the first time for the whole team to meet together in person. We had had fractal meetings with parts of the team in Bangkok and Hong Kong, but this was the first time the full team was present. It’s just amazing how important meeting in person is, and how much more effective it is compared to exchanging emails and speaking over phone/Skype. The working team consists of 10 people with all very unique skills, and is set to deliver an online SME platform to connect and support the SMEs in the Asian region.

First of all, it’s a fun project to work with, but it is also a very important for the regions growth, which has been now stressed in many occasions. Over the EBAC welcome dinner, hosted generously by Barbara, the UN ESCAP Executive Secretary Ms. Noeleen Heyzer accented the importance of SMEs and the sustainable connectivity between them.

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Inside 3D Printing Singapore Event

Inside 3D Printing Singapore took place last week in Marina Bay Sands Hotel Conference facilities. Inside 3D Printing is a global 3D printing event series organized by US-based MediaBistro. The inaugural event was held in New York April this year and we were excited to attend it.

Marina Bay Sands

Obviously being a media partner for the events, we have been following every one of them closely, but we were really looking forward to this one. Partly as it was the first trade show for 3D printing in this region, but also because Ari Honka, my business partner from 3D Printing Industry, Ian Gibson from National University of Singapore and myself put the speaker program together for the conference and co-chaired the event.

The conference ran in two tracks, one larger room where the keynotes were also held. I was MC’ing track 2 in the smaller room, while Ari and Ian took care of the track 1. It was pleasing to see that everything we had planned program wise worked fantastically, all the speakers were on time, none of them failed to show up, and they delivered exactly what we hoped.

My personal highlight of the show was to see Phil Reeves from UK-based Econolyst lay out his incredibly high level of knowledge on 3D printing and this time focusing on medical and healthcare sector.

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