Last week was full of Wintex events, advances and activity.

On January 24th, the Wintex Final Conference took place in the city of Sfax. The event was hosted by the Digital Research Center of Sfax, CRNS.

It began with a general explanation of the Project accompanied of the development, more in detail of the challenges, needs and prospections of the textile and clothing sector. This first part of the conference was led by the UPC, USF and ISET-KH.

Afterwards, one representant from each of the new-born Textile Innovation Centres presented deeply to the attendants (institutions, companies, students, among others) the innovative opportunities and services these centres are able to offer. Particularly, USF, ISMM and ISET-KH exposed the specific content for their centres, accompanied by audio-visual support materials.

Later, an important output generated by the project was presented by Ciape and AEI Tèxtils. A virtual collaboration platform dedicated exclusively to bring together the Tunisian textile academia and industry within a collaborative atmosphere where to exploit the new resources provided by the centres. The platform’s aim is to be an efficient tool on bringing together these two parts of the Tunisian textile sector that even they might work independently, need from the other one to increase their progress.

Furthermore, ATCTex and MFCPole partners, revealed the roadmap for an Academia Textile Industry Council. An institution created to consolidate the previous objective already mentioned.

Then, an exposition about the utility of the new centres on the Tunisian economic development was presented by some members of the FIFTH.

Finally, a working session was organised by splitting the attendants in three sub-groups that would reflect on the following topics:

  • Synergies between programs, Erasmus upcoming calls, and other opportunities
  • Future direction of the textile Tunisian sector: investment and innovation plan
  • Further collaboration between the academia and the industry in Tunisian textile sector

The conference concluded with the exposition of the conclusions and ideas emerged from the debates and with some words of gratitude to the attendants and to the partners.

The next day, on January 25th, the Wintex Final Meeting conference, dedicated to the partners’ job and the project advances, was held in the same partner’s headquarters.

The journey began with a wide update from the UPC, the partner coordinator, who underlined the concluded and to be concluded tasks, some management aspects, and deadlines.

Then, each partner developed the work package they were in charge. It is notable that almost all the objectives set by the consortium are almost finished and that the only few minor activities to be concluded are already being developed.

Finally, Cre.Ti.Dev. and AEI Tèxtils highlighted the most relevant aspects regarding the quality internal control of the project and both internal and external communication and dissemination activities.