Review of 3D Printing Industry Awards 2017

By Loxley Graham.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the first annual 3D Printing Industry Awards, held at the prestigious Chelsea Old Town Hall in London. With this being the first event of its kind, hosted by the industry leading publication group, it was difficult to gauge what the event would entail and the turnout would be, however with over 200,000 votes cast for the various categories I expected a solid attendance.

Upon arrival, it was great to see the hall had a healthy turnout, with several prominent figures in the crowd. It was clear that 3DPI had done a brilliant job in promoting the night. The hall was filled with a great mixture of experience, from professional printing services to industry leaders from industrial OEM’s and end users which resulted in many interesting discussions on the tables around the room.

Following an introduction by Michael and Beau the awards were underway and it must be said, the award design by Morgan Morley was really impressive and a great example of the capabilities of 3d printing.

Another real highlight of the evening was the speeches given by Jonathan Beck of ‘Scan the World’ which is an amazing project, as well as the talk from Konrad Glowacki of Sinterit. The most exciting of all for me was the speech by Dr Adrian Bowyer. I always find it of particular interest to hear from people that have really enabled this industry and to learn how the RepRap project started was a real bonus!

If I was to highlight anything in the future as an area of improvement for the event, it would be to organise the networking element of the evening better and perhaps have an area to move to following the dinner to invoke more discussion. Overall though, I must say it was a great evening and I expect next year’s Awards to continue to build on the great work done this year. Congratulations to Michael, Beau, Corey and of course Rob for his brilliant DJ skills, I look forward to next year!