Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) will be held in the US from September 26 to 29, 2017. IFAI represents the advanced, specialty and shade textile industries. Specialty fabrics feature traditional market suppliers from fabric and equipment to hardware and services needed to manufacture end products. Advanced textiles cover supply chain relationships in technical textile markets including medical, automotive, wearable, safety/protective, performance wear and aerospace. Shade and weather protection includes end products such as retractable awning systems, shade structures, canopies and other weather solutions.

Attendees looking for high tech or durable textiles, equipment, hardware, findings or services, will find it at IFAI Expo. The smart fabrics program will focus on e-textiles and their applications. The program comprises an e-textile workshop on the show floor with electronics and textile experts, easy to assemble e-textile kits available to all, an e-textiles standards roundtable and e-textile market discussions in an open forum setting.

The hackathon is a contest created to encourage innovative new e-textile products with commercial value. It’s open to all entrepreneurs, developers, designers, students, engineers, artists, makers and creators who will be assigned to teams and tasked with innovating using only materials found in the e-textiles workshop.

There will be discussions on topics from advanced textile development, e-textiles, environmental regulation compliance, fire protection to intellectual property law, and product and process development, among other topics.