IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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59 The two-day event welcomed 153 attendees from 10 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia, with 100 companies and organizations send- ing executive, government, industry, and academic leaders, as well as representatives from commer- cial and defense electronics. Efforts in Mexico to Train and Build Relationships In Mexico, IPC's Education Team has been busy providing specialized training courses, certifica- tion programs, and products in Spanish to help lo- cal companies meet industry standards. With the help of IPC Mexico Director Lorena Villanueva, IPC has launched several pilot programs with key com- panies to help them achieve better quality, lower costs, and improve productivity. IPC also partici- pated in the AutoSummit in Leon, Guanajuato, as well as meetings with local governments in Chihua- hua and Guanajuato, the most important industrial clusters of Mexico's automotive industry. Europe By Sanjay Huprikar, President of Europe and South Asia Operations Boldly Engaging the European Electronics Community in 2023 We had a whirlwind of member support activi- ties in Europe in 2022. In addition to being on track to certify a record number of Europeans to IPC standards, our expanding staff has been actively engaged on numerous fronts ranging from interna- tional trade shows and regional technical confer- ences to local "IPC Day" gatherings and facilitating important discussions between the EU policymak- ers in Brussels and our members. The response from the industry leaders we work with regularly has been consistent: "We strongly wel- come IPC's participation in our communi- ty; and the need for standards, education, advocacy, and solutions has never been more urgent." The formation of our legal entity, IPC Electronics Europe GmbH, in May 2022 has been a significant enabler to the growth in activity. We've got another exciting year ahead in 2023 as we help build and proudly serve the electronics community. One of our main objectives is to increase the number of OEM volunteers contributing to our standards development activities. Continuing to strongly promote our consensus-building, global, fair, and open process will be a key focus as we continue to engage the aerospace, automotive, industrial, and medical sectors. In addition, we work toward help- ing the industry develop newer standards in areas covering new materials, e-mobility, and factory au- tomation. Our team is looking to ramp up these ac- tivities in the new year. Hand-soldering competitions continue to gain popularity in Europe. They appropriately spotlight key global standards like IPC-A-610 and the impor- tance of skills development, which is a critical com- ponent of Europe's workforce development focus. In 2022, we had our first regional contest in Esto- nia, which joined the ranks of regular competitions IPC has been holding in Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, and the UK over the last several years. In 2023, we plan to add competitions in Italy, Turkey, and Switzerland. These are possible because of the strong support and contributions we receive from the local IPC-licensed training centers. One of IPC's global initiatives is to move closer to leading-edge advanced packaging technologies. On a practical level, this will eventually help our PCB members expand into IC substrates and our EMS members expand into OSAT. Both are important for Europe to improve its supply chain resiliency by driving toward more regional supply chains. Our Government Relations and Solutions teams will take the lead to drive this throughout Europe. We are planning a symposium mid-year to bring these groups together so that they can start learning from and sharing with each other. For more information, please contact Philippe Leonard, IPC Europe managing director, at Philippe- Leonard@ipc.org.