Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1520956
84 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2024 and trying to solve the workforce chal- lenges we are all struggling with. One mechanism for achieving these aims is our hand-soldering competition. Each trade show is used as a regional hand-sol- dering competition opportunity to name a local champion. At either productron- ica or electronica, we organize the World Championship and bring all the local and national champions together to compete. is has been a great tool to get them more involved in what IPC is doing. Did you achieve your objectives at Global Industrie? Global Industrie 2024 had a very dynamic and active atmosphere, which was good for exchanging information and meeting the many professional experts who traveled to be there. It was well attended. IPC had two locations on the trade show floor. One was dedicated to the hand-soldering competition (for France), where we had more than 50 competitors from all the leading elec- tronics manufacturing companies in France. is year, ales won the national title in France and will send its champion to Munich in November. e other IPC location repeated an exper- iment we did at productronica last year. At that booth, we had an IPC forum with multi- ple sessions daily to showcase the projects IPC is developing for Europe, like the IPC design initiative, CFX, and Factory of the Future. ere were also presentations on the technol- ogy solutions we are bringing to the industry around advanced packaging, the silicon-to- systems initiative, and IPC's significant effort on a pan-European level to advocate for and become the voice of the electronics manufac- turing industry in Europe. We hear a lot about governmental legislation and monetary awards regarding semiconduc- tors. What's happening with the European Chips Act?