10 October 2013

Last October 1, Javier Vinacua, an engineer from INVAP (Applied Research Company), participated in the national conference “3D Printing: Tools for Technological Development, Innovation and Design” carried out at Tecnópolis.

Dr. Ruth Ladenheim, Secretary of Planning and Policies of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, was in charge of opening the meeting together with the engineer Ricardo Del Valle, President of the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI, in Spanish).

During the conference, lecturers approached issues such as the importance and implications of the additive manufacturing for development, the prospects for rapid prototyping in different countries, the characteristics of the national low cost offer in this field, and a report on a wide variety of success cases. Presentations were geared to emphasize the potential of each typology to improve the product design process for the domestic industry and for national small and medium enterprises (PYMES, in Spanish), in order to optimize its competitiveness, quality and value added.

Besides, several panels were held, one of them on product development in the digital age, with the participation of engineer Vinacua together with engineer Agustín Tomás— Coordinator of The Argentine Technology Fund (FONTAR, in Spanish) dependent on the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation— and the industrial designers Gastón Petzold, from FV S. A., Ezequiel Kobrinsky, from IMPLANTES FICO S.R.L., and Federico Insausti, from José M. Alladio e Hijos S. A.