Opportunities & challenges with e-textiles: creating momentum by new standards

Christian Dalsgaard

CEO, Smart Textile Alliance

Christian Dalsgaard is head of the Smart Textile Alliance, a not-for-profit corporation founded to advance e-textile technology through the development of industry standards and support to cross-sector collaborations. Christian is a leader and entrepreneur with considerable expertise in the field of commercializing smart textile development. He founded the company Ohmatex in 2004 and his knowledge spans over a decade from the early stages of R&D of materials and textile integrated wearables into the latest development for the European Space Agency ESA.

: https://smarttextilealliance.com/

Mili Tharakan

Business Leader, Smart Textiles Alliance

Mili John Tharakan is a seasoned inventor-business leader who has been practicing in the field of Smart Textiles since 2004, across both academia and the industry. She founded and led the Smart Textiles Innovation Lab at Welspun (one of the largest home textiles manufacturers in Asia) and went on to develop, manage and launch Smart Textile products in the global market with the company’s corporate start up.

: https://smarttextilealliance.com/
: @@smarttextileall

Prof Veronika Kapsali

Professor of Materials Technology and Design, London College of Fashion at UAL (University of the Arts London)

Veronika is a Professor of Materials Technology and Design at the London College of Fashion at UAL (University of the Arts London) and a leader in the newly emerging field of Bio-inspired Textiles. She has worked for 15+ years on a range of industry-focused applications that include the invention and development of biomimetic active fibres and textiles.

Within her role at UAL, Veronika established the Active Material Systems Research Group and has attracted over £1 million in funding (UKRI/AHRC, Innovate UK, H2020, industry).

Veronika co-founded MMT Textiles Limited to commercialise her invention of a smart fibre that responds to changes in environmental moisture by altering its length. In November 2014 she received the ITMA Future Materials award for INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR.

Veronika draws on her academic and industrial research to underpin a range of knowledge exchange activities on the subjects of material, textile and product innovation. This includes writing a series of five educational films on biomimetic design, commissioned by BBC Learning.