LOPEC 2025 Round Table
Panel Discussion: Design and Printed Electronics
Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 15:00 – 16:00 in the LOPEC Forum in the foyer of the ICM. Free Entrance for all LOPEC Visitors.
On the one hand, flexible, organic and printed electronics (OPE) offer thin, lightweight components that can conform to various shapes and surfaces. This is relevant for applications like wearables, where electronic components must follow the natural contours of the human body.
In automotive and smart home applications, flexible displays and sensors can be integrated seamlessly into curved or irregular surfaces, improving user experience. Smart textiles withstand bending, stretching, and impact, which enables use cases in environments where traditional rigid electronics would fail.
On the other hand, the way designers think and act complements the way scientists and engineers work. Design practices foster innovation by focusing on users, identifying their needs and creating user-centric solutions. Product designers go beyond the technical requirements and consider how people experience, interact with and benefit from products.
Design-centered approaches encourage interdisciplinary collaboration to create products that are both functional and intuitive. In consumer electronics, design methodologies enable the creation of devices that integrate seamlessly into users’ lives, merging technology with ease of use and aesthetics.
The LOPEC 2025 Round Table will discuss how flexible electronics is enabling new product designs and how design practices are benefiting flexible, organic and printed electronics:
- What is it like to work as a designer with flexible electronics technologists and vice versa?
- What is valuable to the design community from the technologies and capabilities offered by OPE?
- What can flexible electronics learn from design practices to accelerate the creation of radically innovative products?
- How can OPE-based design increase the uptake and commercial success of OPE technologies?
- What success stories can we share, what can we do to increase mutual wins?
- Is design sometimes or always crucial to success?
- What does a good, practical development process look like - one that integrates technology and design?
The panelists of the LOPEC 2025 Round Table:
- Marie o’Mahoney (University of Southampton)
- Marina Toeters (Fashion Tech Farm)
- Pete Valianatos (E ink)
- Jurgen Westerhoff (SPGprints)
The panel is organized and facilitated by Dr. Giovanni Nisato, Managing Director, Innovation-Horizons (CH)
Notice: The LOPEC Round Table will always be held in English, there will be no simultaneous translation.