The third Electronics Design Show (EDS) continued to demonstrate its popularity with exhibitors and attendees last month with record numbers – more than 4000 engineering professionals – attending the two day event.
“The 2015 Engineering Design Shows have, once again, been a huge success; visitor numbers were up on 2014 and the events hosted the largest number of exhibitors to date,” said Ed Tranter, executive director at Findlay Media.
Exhibitors were certainly impressed. Chris Cokayne, technical sales manager with Analog Devices, said: “EDS has been a great success this year and there was considerable interest in our IoT and smart wearable offerings.”
First time exhibitor Harmonic Software Systems found ‘a real buzz’ around the show. Director Ed Liversidge said: “It’s really important for a company like ours to attend events like EDS. We not only get the chance to meet other exhibitors, many of whom are our customers, but also with engineers. Will we be attending next year? Yes, no hesitation!”
In fact 80% of exhibitors at the Show have already confirmed their stand space for next year. “We now have a waiting list for exhibition space at the 2016 event and, with the new features and innovations we have planned, I am confident the Engineering Design Shows will continue to offer visitors and exhibitors a fantastically immersive engineering experience,” explained Tranter.
As well as the exhibitions, there was a high level conference programme, which featured speakers from a broad range of companies. Professor William Webb, chief executive of the Weightless SIG, caught the attention of attendees. He told the conference that, when it came to the Internet of Things, estimates of 50billion connected devices within the next five or ten years could prove to be on the low side. He suggested that anything up to 500bn connected devices could be possible and he wondered whether the electronics industry would be able to meet that level of demand.
Mark Shanley from Astute Electronics contended that, should those figures prove correct, it would provide an ideal opportunity for counterfeiters to fill the gap between supply and demand.
In addition to the conference programme, more than 40 workshops provided visitors with hands-on, practical advice on a variety of technology and industry issues.
“The Electronics Design Show has grown consistently, building on excellent organisation, close partnerships with exhibitors and targeted marketing,” said Alastair Worth, director of wireless and networking Europe for Avnet Embedded, one of the event’s headline sponsors. “It’s great to see an event like this in the UK and one that is pulling in such a broad mix of design engineers.”
Ian Wallace, UK sales director, Digi-Key, concurred. “We’ve met a lot of new people at the Show; it’s been non-stop. We are certainly very keen to support it going forward.”
The Engineering Design group of shows is set to evolve further in 2016, with the addition of ‘Tomorrow’s Engineering Designers’, an exhibition and conference that will aim to promote careers in engineering to post-graduates and which will run alongside the Engineering Design Show. Leading UK employers and institutions will be on hand to discuss career opportunities and to present a series of keynotes and panel sessions encouraging the next generation of design engineers.
Make a date for 2016 The Engineering Design Show and Tomorrow’s Engineering Designers will run at the Jaguar Exhibition Halls, Ricoh Arena, Coventry, from 19 to 20 October 2016. |
