ICALEO, the annual gathering of laser professionals, will be held October 6-11, 2019 in Orlando, FL. LIA Executive Director Nat Quick and his team have greatly expanded the venue so that this traditional laser meeting can evolve into a meeting place not just for ‘laser geeks,’ but for anyone interested in state-of-the-art manufacturing using lasers. As part of this effort, focus will be placed on end user industries.
Monday, October 7th will focus on the aerospace industry; Tuesday will be medical devices and life sciences; Wednesday, microelectronics; and Thursday, automotive. The technical conference and workshop will further feature five hot areas of laser manufacturing—laser additive manufacturing (LAM), nanofabrication, microfabrication, microfabrication, and battery systems and energy conversion. As usual, the business session will feature user presentations and panel discussions and, most importantly, will look at market drivers and future forecasts.
In addition to attracting more end users, the ICALEO organizers hope to increase the number of University students in attendance, especially those studying in the U.S. A lot of us who have been in the laser industry for 30 years or longer are getting ready to pass the torch, so it will be great to see more young folks at the venue. Also, with the industry-specific days, there will probably be more attendees who only come for one day rather than the entire week, which in the past was the majority of attendees. So, those people will be anxious to maximize their face time while on site.
An extensive list of featured speakers can be found here and conference registration can be found here.
The interesting thing to me is that I do not know most of these people, which probably means we have many first-time attendees and also that I get to meet a lot of new people!
Also, don’t forget to attend the many evening venues, which are a great place for networking and socializing. In particular, the Sunday night opening reception features the Beer’s Law Band, a group of laser industry professionals who also long to be rock stars ….
See you in Orlando!
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