3D Printing or Additive Manufacturing: What’s Ahead and What Will it Mean for Industry and Consumers?

Please join us for an exciting event to explore the future of a much-talked-about technology: 3D printing, or as some prefer, additive manufacturing. The SF Bay Area is the home of many companies that are helping shape the future of this emerging industry. Many of these are small, startup companies that are doing new and innovative things, like Type A Machines, led by one of our speakers. Another, much larger company—and a neighbor of Babson’s SF campus, Autodesk—is another local company that has some very interesting 3D printing initiatives that we will hear about.

We have assembled an all-star panel, moderated by someone who has followed the industry for many years, and we expect a wide-ranging discussion of a number of issues and topics, and by interaction between the panelists and the attendees. Some of the questions and issues we expect to address, include the following:

Do we have a 3D printing ecosystem in the Bay Area? What are some of the key characteristics of this ecosystem and how is it evolving?
What parts of the emerging 3D printing industry have shown the greatest growth and dynamism in recent years, and will this likely change in the near and longer term future?
What are the “low hanging fruit” in the industry? Are they in the consumer of industry segments of the industry?
Some analysts see 3D printing potentially leading to a renaissance of US manufacturing, driven by new levels of software and hardware integration, but is this a likely scenario?
How does the US competitive position in 3D printing compare to that of Europe and Asia, for instance?

Espen Sivertsen @EspenSivertsen

CEO of Type A Machines, makers of the award winning Series 1 desktop 3D printer.

Espen Sivertsen is the CEO of Type A Machines, an award winning San Francisco based 3D printer manufacturer. Since their inception in January 2012, Type A Machines have helped their community of Designers, Makers, Architects, Educators, Students and Engineers build great things. Prior to this Espen has experience as Head of Demolab at Innovation Lab. iLab is an international knowledge center for new technologies and trends. As head of their demonstration lab, he acquired interesting prototypes, new materials and products scheduled to market within 3-5 years and coordinated demonstrations of these to iLab’s members. With a background in business and psychology, Espen has also served as Team Leader with the KaosPilots, a Scandinavian school of entrepreneurship described by Fast Company as the “new curriculum for managing change." An enthusiastic hiker, Espen also plays frisbee golf in his spare time.

Geoffrey Doyle @GeoffreyDoyle

Geoffrey Doyle is President of FIT West Corp., a fully owned subsidiary of German company FT AG (netfabb 3d printing software company is also a fully owned subsidiary of FIT AG), and is bringing specialist metal additive manufacturing technology to the west coast.

Starting his career in the British Army (Royal Engineers), he transitioned into venture capital and worked at Percipient Capital in London for over 10 years investing in UK technology companies. After moving to Silicon Valley he in 2012 he founded Growshapes LLC, the first 3d printing and 3d scanning VAR in Silicon Valley, and also established SVForum’s 3D Printing and Scanning Special Interest Group shortly afterwards, the first monthly meeting forum for 3D printing related technology in Silicon Valley. Geoffrey holds a B.Eng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from University of Manchester (UK), an MBA from Manchester Business School (UK) and graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

About FIT West Corp. – FIT West Corp, established in the SF Bay area at the beginning of 2015, is a fully owned subsidiary of FIT AG, an Additive Manufacturing technology company from Germany. FIT AG has over 20 years’ experience developing leading software (netfabb) and hardware technology for Additive Manufacturing, especially in the field of metal, for industrial prototyping and manufacturing.

Carsten Jarfelt @Jarfelt

Brought up on Design Thinking, M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and matured over an Executive MBA focused on Innovation, Carsten is all into the space of Future Tech and the people navigating it! Decisions start and end with people – influencing decisions by building partnerships and business between people in the digital-physical space is his specialty. Driving awareness and opinion makers by true Storyselling….working with both Enterprises and Startups - in an international setting.

Founder of www.MAKERdisrupt.com bringing 3D printing consultancy to both Startups and SMEs. This government led crusade into the Future of Manufacturing has spun some interesting knowledge networks with companies like: Google, LEGO, Autodesk, BluePrinter, Intel, MakerBot, 3D Systems and even more, including a full mapping of the Scandinavia Maker community and network.

Besides the full time role as ICT Director at Innovation Center Denmark in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley - Carsten is also an active board member to several companies including Danske Bank and two 3D printing related companies like MXD3D and The 3D Print House Aps. in Denmark, the worlds largest retail and consultancy company on 3D printing and related services.

Brock Hinzmann (Moderator) @TechScan

Technology Navigator. Business Futures Network--Brock Hinzmann has spent over 35 years as a futures researcher and ‘sensemaker’ at SRI International and SRI spinoff consulting companies in a wide range of technology and business areas, including advanced materials, energy, manufacturing technologies, nanotechnology, sensors, and robotics. He has consulted to industrial companies and government agencies to implement programs in scanning and foresight, the creation of futures scenarios, opportunity discovery, and technology roadmapping. He is a co-founder of the SME Rapid Prototyping Association (today, the SME Rapid Technologies & Additive Manufacturing Community) and, in 1996, he wrote “The Personal Factory” as a forecast of the 3-D printing industry. Brock is currently an associate of Business Futures Network (a UK-based foresight consulting company), is co-chairman of the Silicon Valley Node of the Millennium Project, and is an executive committee member and past Chair of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of ASM International (the advanced materials society). He has a BA in International and Germanic studies from Willamette University and an MBA in international business from San Francisco State University.

Mads Paulin, Autodesk

Mads Paulin has been with Autodesk since 2010 and is currently the
Platform Architect for Autodesk’s Spark 3D Printing Platform initiative -
an open platform for additive manufacturing software, hardware, materials
and services. Prior to joining the Spark program, Mads worked on various
Autodesk technologies in areas such as computational geometry, graphics
and modeling. Mads holds a Ph.D. in robotics from the University of
Southern Denmark, focused on improving the flexibility of robotic
manufacturing and assembly systems by integrating results from motion
planning, robot vision, sensor fusion and visual servoing. When not at
work at Autodesk’s amazing Pier9 office and workshop, Mads enjoys
exploring the Bay Area on his road bike.