Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1355791
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2021 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 93 Almost 25 years aer I started working on e-textiles and developing my first e-textile pro- totypes and structures, I realized that no mat- ter how good our laboratory prototypes are, they will never really be able to hit the market without following the norms and standards, including well-defined testing methods, for the critical characteristics and stresses they may undergo. e problem? ese norms and stan- dards were (and are) still missing. Also, because the word e-textiles encompasses electronics and textiles, it was very important to find a way to help these two industrial sectors better understand one another. is led me to begin collaborating with IPC two years ago. Aer decades of work in my field, I was awarded the Rising Star award during IPC APEX EXPO 2021. I would like to thank my research team, all the colleagues from the D-75A-EU E-Textiles Wearables Standard Task Group in Europe, Chris Jorgensen from IPC, and Sigrid Rotzler, the Task Group vice-chair. Last but not least, I would like to express my thanks to IPC CEO John Mitchell for this award. Our collaboration with IPC continues to grow, and I am sure that the IPC-8981 Qual- ity and Reliability of E-textiles Wearables stan- dards will be soon published and utilized by both textile and electronics companies. Our collaboration with IPC, which began back in 2018 before the pandemic, offered us excel- lent preparation for the remote work we all must embrace today with the lockdown. Because many members of the subcommittee under my chair live in different countries, we must use vid- eoconferencing soware for remote meetings. I very much enjoyed IPC APEX EXPO 2021, with its technical conferences and application- focused professional development courses, in a virtual format. I particularly appreciated the IPC Annual Meeting and Awards Hall of Fame Personal Recognition chaired by an inspired John Mitchell, who expressed his thanks to me in French, saying, "Merci beaucoup!" Finally, I hope that this difficult period will soon be behind us and that we will all meet at the next IPC APEX EXPO in San Diego in 2022. Once again, merci beaucoup! S&T