Tag Archives: keynote
MakerBot and Stratasys Take Center Stage at the Inside 3D Printing Chicago Keynote
MakerBot and Stratasys Share a Vision for the Future of 3D Printing
Two industry giants, Scott Crump and Bre Pettis, lay out their vision.
Scott Crump, Chairman of the Board of Stratasys, and Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot, kicked off the Inside 3D Printing conference in Chicago this morning with an exciting vision of a future where 3D printing becomes a part of our daily life.
It all began in the late 80s, when Scott Crump wanted to make a toy frog for his daughter. Scott and his wife Lisa built the frog, and with it the first 3D printer, with little more than a glue gun and a toy plotter in their kitchen. A passion was born, and after the food started tasting like plastic, they moved the operation to the garage. In 1989, they patented the first FDM (fused deposition modeling) machine, or 3D printer. Today Scott Crump is Chairman of the Board and Chief Innovation Officer of Stratasys, the largest commercial 3D printer company in the world. With over 30,000 printers sold, Stratasys has a global presence and annual revenues of over $350 million. They currently produce over fifty five percent of the commercial 3D printers in the market.
“Welcome to Stratasys and welcome to a 3D world,” passionately stated Scott Crump, “where the only limitation is your own imagination.” Crump emphasized how it’s amazing that a toy froggy led to building an exoskeleton that allows a girl to have fully functional limbs. In addition to turning manufacturing on its head, 3D printing will have a positive impact on people’s lives. “The manufacturing revolution has started and it’s not changing slowly,” says Crump. “Stratasys looks forward to leading the way to a future where we will see millions of 3D printers from home to industrial use.”
Crump then introduced Bre Pettis, the co-founder and CEO of MakerBot, who spoke about his journey into the 3D printing world that has made these printers accessible to consumers. He mentioned that he and his co-founders Adam and Zach began playing with the idea of 3D printing in 2007 at the hacker space, NYC Resistor. By January 2009, they founded MakerBot, which has recently been acquired by Stratasys for $403 million. Much like Scott and Lisa Crump started in their kitchen, Pettis mentioned how they “started as three guys, a laser cutter and a dream.”
After speaking to friends that they saw a future where you could download objects, they came up with Thingiverse where the latest challenge is for someone to come up with a birdhouse to download. Thingiverse has just launched a customizer where people who don’t know what CAD stands for, can design their own iPhone case design. Pettis mentioned, “Consumers now live in a world where they don’t have to choose between two products,” they can make one for themselves. He set forth his favorite example of a toy train track that can be made functional through 3D printing.
Scott Crump and Bre Pettis emphasized that 3D printing is here to stay and will become ubiquitous in our lives.
Authored by On 3D Printing contributors Rodrigo Garza Zorrilla, technology entrepreneur and advisor, and Lisa M. Pérez, co-founder of Heart Design Inc.
Keynote Declares “Complexity is Free”: 3D Printing Conference (Part 2)
3D Printing Conference Keynote: Complexity is Free
Avi Reichental, CEO of 3D Systems, the world’s largest 3D printing company, opened this week’s inaugural Inside 3D Printing Conference in New York City with the declaration “Complexity is free” in the world of 3D printing. For the first time in the history of manufacturing, he explained, “The machine doesn’t care how complex of an object it makes.” This was only one of many provocative and forward-looking declarations he made in his thirty-minute keynote to open the conference attended by over a thousand industry insiders, enthusiasts, investors and media followers.
Mr. Reichental’s address focused on the many industries that he sees being disrupted by 3D printing. In design and manufacturing, for instance, he said that two-thirds of professional engineers still do not use 3D printing at all, meaning there is considerable opportunity to further penetrate 3D printing’s traditional marketplace. However, in other industries ranging from medical devices to education to fashion to candy making, Mr. Reichental sees even more opportunity to expand 3D printing’s footprint and create fundamentally new and exciting products and businesses.
Other highlights from Mr. Reichental’s address:
- He predicts the 3D printing industry will grow by 8-10 times in the next decade.
- The combination of higher R&D spending, lower time-to-market, higher complexity, greater democratization, and increased focus on sustainability fuels the rapid expansion of 3D printing.
- No single 3D printing technology will address every solution; therefore multiple technologies need to be advanced.
- “Mass-complexity” of designs will fuel demand for 3D printers in industry as much as “mass-customization,” specifically in strength-to-weight concerned industries such as aerospace and automotive.
- Patient-specific medical devices will become the norm thanks to 3D printing.
While at times Mr. Reichental’s address was clearly promoting the achievements of his own company, he successfully made the point that 3D printing is expanding outward from its core in multiple directions and at a very high velocity. And at very least, he made the case for all the conference’s attendees that to better understand 3D printing is to better understand the future of multiple industries, and indeed a very worthwhile way to spend the next two days.
Authored by Brian H. Jaffe, founder of Mission St. Manufacturing and contributor to On 3D Printing.
