Industry First: TIPE 3D Printing Conference to Feature All Female Speakers

According to the 2017 US Census, less than one third of the workforce in the manufacturing industry is made up of women, even though women make up the majority of the nation’s workforce overall. This is a problem, given the country’s manufacturing labor shortage. But, as Ginger Butz, business segment director at Morey, explained in an email, this could have a silver lining: it’s an opportunity for additive and subtractive manufacturing companies to work harder to “get women more involved and improve gender parity throughout the industry.”

“By expanding their recruitment efforts to target more women, manufacturers could see the number of women in the factories rising, filling the labor shortage and improving gender parity,” Butz told me.

Butz shared that women not only earn more than half of all the nation’s associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees, but they also hold the majority of professional and managerial positions in the US as well.

“Women in these positions could use their talents to help close the skills gap as well as the labor shortage,” she continued.

“I’m excited to see more women join the workforce and leverage their experience to improve the industry.”

Speaking of improving the industry…

Nonprofit, community-based organization Women in 3D Printing is dedicated to promoting, supporting, and inspiring women working in the global additive manufacturing industry, and increase the visibility of female leaders in AM. The organization does this by giving presentations and holding webinars, virtual panels, and events, such as the virtual TIPE 3D Printing conference: exciting news, as it will be the first time in the AM industry that all of the speakers and panelists on the agenda for a conference will be women. ALL. OF. THEM.

Dana McCallum, the Head of Production Partnerships for Carbon, is on the Board of Directors for Women in 3D Printing, and reached out to 3DPrint.com to let us know about TIPE 3D Printing, a “human-centered” event that welcomes all members of the additive manufacturing community, be they male or female. The conference focuses on case studies, AM visionary talks and user applications, and networking opportunities, and will be held in a virtual format January 27-28, 2021.

The platinum sponsors for the upcoming TIPE 3D Printing Conference were recently announced, and there sure are some big names: Dassault Systèmes, GE Additive, HP, MatterHackers, and TRUMPF will all be sponsoring this exciting event.

“We are proud to welcome TRUMPF, MatterHackers, HP, Dassault Systèmes and GE Additive as the five Platinum sponsors to our first annual Women in 3D Printing conference, TIPE 3D Printing. We thank our platinum sponsors for supporting our mission of promoting and encouraging women in additive manufacturing,” Nora Touré, the Founder of Women in 3D Printing, said in a press release.

The support of these sponsor companies is strong evidence that they, and hopefully the rest of the industry, fully support the TIPE 3D Printing Conference mission.

“As we all work towards a future of equity and inclusion in Additive Manufacturing, it is our responsibility to support organizations who are leading by example,” said Mara Hitner, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at MatterHackers. “MatterHackers has been involved with Women in 3D Printing since 2017. I personally get so much out of their networking events and panels. We are honored to be partnering on exciting desktop 3D printing content which will move the industry forward, and to support the diverse voices of the TIPE Conference.”

The TIPE 3D Printing conference will feature four different tracks: technology, industry, people, and economics, though we’re still waiting for the specific agenda to come out. What we do know is that there will be more than 40 presentations by female leaders in the AM industry, from companies, universities, and organizations including America Makes, EOS, AM-Cubed, Additive Integrity, Boeing, Ford, Carbon, RMIT, MakeLab, the University Federal de São Paulo, and more.

“Yet another great initiative by the team at Women in 3D Printing,” Christine Furtoss, Vice President of Advanced Manufacturing at GE Additive, said about the TIPE 3D Printing conference. “We’re happy to support as a platinum sponsor and look forward to contributing alongside this stellar line up of speakers.”

The event’s keynote speaker is Dr. Sara Safari, an award-winning author, speaker, college professor, Electrical Engineer, mountain climber, and advocate for women empowerment, serving as a board member and the director of development for the Empower Nepali Girls foundation.

“The TIPE 3D printing conference will provide a disruptive platform to inspire and support not only women in 3D printing, but all innovators across our 3D printing community and many other global industries. There is immense strategic value in the topics represented by TIPE, and how a diverse workforce will help accelerate the growth and maturation of 3D printing and digital manufacturing around the world,” said Ramon Pastor, the global head of HP’s 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing business. “We are proud to support an event that fosters diverse and inclusive perspectives, and closely aligns with HP’s own mission to positively impact people, the planet, and the communities we serve.”

This event will truly offer “actionable resources” to the industry as a whole, as it will provide an opportunity for organizations and individuals to discuss applications and current initiatives. But more importantly, it will shine a spotlight on the female voices in this industry. In this blog post, “The State of Women in Tech 2020,” several ideas to help decrease the gender gap in tech fields are mentioned, such as encouraging younger generations of women, being a mentor, and investing in female-led businesses (like MELD Manufacturing, for instance). But number one on the list was amplifying women’s voices.

“A vital key in championing women at work is equalizing voices. Whether it’s interrupting, mansplaining, or having others take credit for their ideas, women have confirmed that this is a serious problem in the workplace,” wrote Kasee Bailey, who writes for the web hosting provider and domain name registrar DreamPost.

“In tech — as in all other workplaces — we need to amplify aggressively. Listen to women, actively include them in conversations and give credit where it’s (desperately) due. Your business and the quality of your work environment will be better for it.”

On the TIPE 3D Printing website, Touré noted that in just six years, Women in 3D Printing evolved from a blog to one of the largest AM communities in the world, with over 65 chapters in 25 countries. Clearly what women in AM, and the manufacturing world in general, have to say is important, and others want to hear it, so I’m ecstatic that this event will provide them with a good platform.

You can register for TIPE 3D Printing, the first-ever 3D printing conference boasting all female speakers, here. There is no cost for simple live stream access, and will be just $95 if you want full access to both the live event and replays. Mark your calendars for January 27-28, 2021, you won’t want to miss this one!

(Images courtesy of Women in 3D Printing)