IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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30 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2026 In 2016, a customer asked me to lead an IPC CID certification course. I wasn't familiar with IPC (now the Global Electronics Association), but I learned about the organi- zation, earned my CID, and took my CID+ certifications. I became Italy's first CID and CID+ trainer, which marked the beginning of our partnership with the Associa- tion. Today, we are its premier training provider in Italy for standards and CID/ CID+ certification. Does your teaching expand beyond Italy? As far as IPC certifications are concerned, we're also trainers for Advanced Rework Technology in the UK. As such, we release all available certifica- tions today wherever there is an opportunity to do so. I always attend APEX EXPO to contribute my voice and be part of these standards commit- tee meetings. What are your thoughts on being involved in the standards process? By design, it is a very elaborate and extremely im- portant process. For those of us outside the U.S., it sometimes feels challenging to get our voices heard, which is especially important when word choice translations from English into other languag- es affect how things will be read and understood. Unfortunately, there have traditionally been fewer Europeans represented at most of the big stan- dards meetings. The process inherently lends itself to being overly U.S.-centric, though I believe the Global Electronics Association is trying to be more globally inclusive through its regional offices and by expanding meetings with regional events like this year's IPC Builds in Paris. Yes, despite some efforts, standards activity is still largely U.S.-based. I believe IPC Builds and the Pan-European Design Conference are efforts to ensure greater international input into standards. Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend IPC Builds (taking place in September 2026) due to my teach- ing schedule, but I look forward to hearing some positive feedback about it. In my experience, who- ever shows up to a standards meeting is typically who gets a vote (though there is a mechanism for absentee votes to be submitted), but if there are only 10 people at a meeting in Eu- rope and 100 in the U.S., you can see how the European input eas- ily gets lost. The European com- mittee members may all agree on something, but we will still be unable to implement what we felt was impor- tant at the main meetings. How did IDCI get started, and how active is the Ital- ian design community? Ten years ago, I started talking to the Global Elec- tronics Association about the need to establish a designers council in Italy, like the one that had origi- nally existed in the United States. But I wanted to do something slightly different. I wanted to run the council, not as a forum, but as a place for stake- holders—PCB designers, electrical engineers, man- agers, or whoever could join from time to time—to discuss relevant issues, but without any real expec- tation. At its base, this would be about networking and sharing knowledge. I wanted it to be at no cost to participants and I would only ask for small contri- butions if we needed to pay for a high-level speaker. Were you able to do as you hoped? Yes, for the first chapter meeting, we invited indus- try expert Jan Pedersen of NCAB. He spoke about the need for Class 3 designs at the PCB level. It was free to attend. This was during COVID, so we met remotely, but it was a good knowledge ex- change, and it was genuinely appreciated by all who attended. Did making it so accessible spur better participation? Yes, it did. I'm familiar with the Italian market. If I ask people to join a free meeting where I will give them valuable information, I will fill the room. If I start saying, "Yes, you come, but then you need to help me by working on X and Y," they will say, "Sorry, I have no time." At one point, we had more than 20 active members. Right now, some things have not worked in our favor, so we are back to trying to get consistent P i et ro Ve rg i n e