Innovation Mission to the United States brings together Brazilian companies

From December 11 to 15, Brazilian textile and apparel industry companies took part in an Innovation Mission to the USA that included visits to some of the biggest research institutes and studies on industry 4.0 in the cities of Boston, Raleigh and Atlanta.

The initiative included representatives from Altenburg, Audaces, Coteminas, Elastan, Generalle, Irmaos Perfeito, ITM Textil, Karsten, Lakeland, Malwee, Paramount, RVB Malhas, Soutex, Texion and Villa Textil, and was carried out by Texbrasil (the Brazilian Textile and Fashion Industry Internationalization Program), the result of a partnership between Abit and the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil).

According to Rodrigo Cabral, Sales Director at Audaces, identifying future trends such as nanotechnology, wearables and new era textiles was strategically important to the mission. “Although we have travelled a lot, to three different cities, all of the topics were pertinent, balancing textiles and apparel,” he says. He also commented that high points of the trip were the relationship established with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the College of Textiles at the North Carolina State University and the 3D body scanning company TC².

Pedro Bastos, Director and Vice President at Coteminas, said that the mission was very stimulating: “I think that Abit/Texbrasil did an excellent job of curating the visits, talks and contacts; I learned a lot from them as did my colleagues, since we make up a heterogeneous group – with apparel makers, equipment manufacturers, knit fabric makers and integrated companies, this allowed for a diverse vision in relation to what was shown.”

The mission also exceeded the expectations of Eduardo Tavarez, Vice President in Latin America for Lakeland. “Visits to Ministry of Supply, TC² Labs and Softwear Automation were very useful and interesting for us to assess our own competitiveness and future,” he said. In addition, he mentioned that the contacts made during the mission will also open up doors to future partnerships and developments.

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