JEC Group, the world’s leading company dedicated to promoting composite materials, has adapted its annual JEC World event as an all-new digital platform called JEC Composites Connect. The virtual event, presented June 1-2, 2021, represents the composite industry’s most significant event since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, hosting major industry players and highlighting innovations through product launches, competitions, awards ceremonies and keynote speeches.
More than 1,000 companies and thousands of attendees are expected from various aspects of the composites value chain. Exhibitor breakdown by industrial sector is as follows:
- Raw materials
- Intermediate products
- Equipment, tools and ancillary products
- Distribution, agents and account representation
- Third parties, services, engineering, and R&D
- Composites parts producers and processors
- Composites end-users and integrators
JEC Composites Connect will feature a minimum of 65 product launches over the course of the two-day show. The JEC Composites Innovation Awards celebrate the most innovative composites projects and fruitful collaborations between different value chain players in 2021. The awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, June 2, at 2pm CEST, with an opening keynote speech from inventor and entrepreneur Franky Zapata, a.k.a. “the Flying Man.” As the CEO and founder of a company that bears his name, Zapata became well-known for his famed crossing of the English Channel in August 2019 on his Flyboard Air, and he will reveal a brand-new flying machine this year.
The 2021 JEC Composites Startup Booster competition will feature live streaming pitches and a winners’ ceremony. The startups will pitch during two live sessions on June 1st from 10:30 am to 11:30am and from 5 pm to 6 pm CEST. The winners will be revealed at the awards ceremony on June 2nd at 2:30 pm CEST.
The JEC Composites Challenge, where Ph.D.s present their research projects in front of a jury will take pitch on June 2.
JEC Composites Connect will also feature focused programming around the topics of automotive and aerosspace.
The aerospace industry is a major source of innovation and technological advancements that often originates inspiration across a wide variety of other industries. In a context where environmental constraints are becoming increasingly stringent especially when it comes to air mobility, OEMs are constantly in search of innovative answers and solutions that will allow them to create a “greener” future. The need for light-weighting, reduced maintenance and waste, and repurposing aerospace-grade CFRP towards other applications are expected to drive demand and adoption of composites in aerospace applications. A live conference, “Aerospace – Towards a More Sustainable Strategy,” will take place June 1st at 9 am (Paris local time).
Among the many challenges facing the automotive industry, reducing vehicle mass and therefore emissions all while maintaining safety and cost-efficiency remain key. Lighter materials implying higher costs, they limit mass production. Therefore, a combination of materials, albeit hybrid solutions, would help solve this issue and are becoming increasingly attractive for manufacturers. These “Business Conferences” consist of industry presentations and a panel discussion involving major OEMs & Tier1s from all over the world. It covers the challenges & opportunities of using composite materials in the automotive field. A live conference, “Automotive – The Right Material at the Right Place” will take place on June 1st at 3 pm (Paris local time).
The next editions of JEC Group’s events include:
- JEC Korea on November 3-5, 2021 in Seoul, South Korea
- JEC Forum Dach on November 23-24, 2021 in Frankfurt, Germany
- JEC World, March 8-10, 2022 in Paris, France
