SAN SEBASTIAN HOSTED THE MAIN NATIONAL CONGRESS OF ADVANCED AND DIGITAL MANUFACTURING

From the 23^rd to the 25^th of October 2019, the XXII edition of the Congress of Advanced Manufacturing and Machine Tools took place in the Science and Technology Park of Gipuzkoa, in Donostia-San Sebastián.

The most veteran technological congress in the country, which held its first edition in 1976, has become a reference event in the field of advanced and digital manufacturing. The organization added a global vision of issues such as digitalization, talent attraction and management for the industry, additive manufacturing, electric vehicle challenges or the development and launch of start-ups, brought by companies and speakers of recognized prestige to the cutting-edge scientific-technical perspective that characterized the congress since its inception.

As a novelty in this edition, a space was implemented throughout the congress for B2B meetings between professionals of the sector, in order to promote cooperation and favor the creation of trade agreements.

In addition, and within the framework of the close collaboration of AFM Cluster with HEGAN, the congress hosted the celebration of a new edition of Aerotrends, Aerospace Business Meetings & New Trends Conferences, the congress promoted by the Cluster HEGAN that has established itself as the periodical aerospace event of biggest magnitude in Spain among professionals. It now again proposes to offer a service to facilitate economic activity among aeronautical agents throughout Europe.

This year we had the presence of companies as relevant as Berger Group, Siemens, ISG Virtous, HP, GF Precicast Additive, Danobatgroup, Loire Gestamp, CAF, Gonvarri and Valeo, among many others. In addition, we had the presence of Magomore that intervened on Friday to round off the three intense days of presentations and debates.

Maintaining the tradition, during the closing ceremony of the congress, which took place on the 25^th of October, four awards were given: one, to the best work presented by a company, another, to the best communication presented by the scientific-technical community, the third to the best final project by a technical school and the fourth to the best presentation done in Basque.

In the last edition, held in October 2017, the meeting brought together 440 attendees who had the opportunity to enjoy the presentations of more than 50 papers and 20 posters of R&D&I projects. Regarding the participating companies, some outstanding brands of past editions are ABB, Microsoft, HP, AIRBUS, SIEMENS or BÖHLER; also, some outstanding speakers were Terry Wholers, Jaume Homs, Alex Rovira or Guillermo Tena.