Yesterday I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at the INDA conference in Chicago. I really enjoyed presenting 3 macro trends on Open Innovation and what those trends might mean. There were lots of great questions and discussion.
INDA is the trade association representing the nonwovens industry. I was surprised at the diversity of technology and innovation on display. The vendor floor was full of activity. I was told the conference was a little smaller than previous years, but it did not look that way to me.
I met a wide variety of companies. Filtration impacts almost every aspect of our lives – it’s critical for our water and air, and the car we drive, the food we buy and products we love – even in hospitals and healthcare is filtration critical. Innovation in filtration can ripple through our economy providing a great positive impact – and most of us might never know. I love events like this
I met a few companies that really impressed me:
www.elmarco.com – Elmarco is the industry’s first supplier of industrial scale nanofiber production equipment. Nanofibers are very interesting and have broad application in semiconductors and filtration. This is a firm I’d watch as a source of great innovations. I’d also watch their customer base.
www.filtrationgroup.com – I met the CEO of this 3rd generation family business. The Filtration Group sells a wide variety of filters. They seemed to me to be a market leader in air but they are moving into some new segments.
www.freudenberg-filter.com – I’m told they are the worlds largest nonwovens producer, looking at their product line, it seems accurate. They manage filtration for the world’s largest ship – the Oasis of the Sea and a host of other challenging applications. This is the 4th family business I found at the show, and clearly a market leader.
A lot of great innovation is going to come out of nonwovens, that will make the world a cleaner safer and nicer place to live. The venture capital community needs to be watching, so do the the technology scouts – I know I will be watching closely.
November 23, 2009 at 8:13 am |
Ben,
Thanks for the great insights you provided during your keynote to the Filtration industry. We are very happy to report that Filtration 09 was success. We had around 8% more attendees then the previous year. The industry seems to have recovered more quickly from the down turn then other markets and is ready for the continued growth. As you pointed out it is a very innovative environment to be in. Thanks for the feedback.
December 8, 2009 at 7:05 pm |
Ben – Thank you so much for the kind mention from your blog. I’ve continued to get great feedback on your presentation and we (Elmarco and INDA) really appreciate your time and presentation.