Alexandre Jais

The talk focuses on the role of the 3D printers, machines that create three-dimensional objects from a digital files, in the close future. Started off as an industrial piece of technology in the 1980s, 3D printing is now adapted to an everyday user. The technique could be found useful in various domains such as medical bioprinting or architecture yet the knowledge about is still not yet developed. Further education about it could unlock its full potential.

"They will be everywhere, they will print anything, and these fantastic machines are called 3D Printers."

"Education will really be the key to unlock the potential of 3D printing. Kids are fascinating to watch when they work with this technology."

"All right, let's do a little bit of sight fight. They will be everywhere, they will print anything, whatever we want to, whenever we want to, and those fantastic machines are called 3D printers. And what they do is that instead of removing material, they build objects from nothing, layer by layer, depositing a variety of material. And so the question I'm asking is will our future be 3D printed? Will we go to a restaurant and have a 3D printed steak? I don't know if you've heard about it, but houses are starting to be 3D printed. And so the reality right now is a little bit different. I don't think that anyone in the room has a 3D printer right now. I have one, I use it quite a lot and it gets me really excited about the potential future of this technology, and fascinated by the current applications. So what is interesting about 3D printing is that it started as an industrial technology in the mid eighties, and the key date is when the patent expired in the middle of the last decade, allowing makers to start building their own machines. They now sell it for couple hundred dollars. You can build it, assemble it yourself, modify it, of course use it and this with minimal technical knowledge. And what is great is that even though I won't be able to print all my footwear or stuff from my kitchen with my 3D printer, I can still print very interesting things with my machine at home. For example this is reduced model of an arm that you can use, if you want, as a cast for immobilizing if you have a wound.This is a toy cat that's shiny and nice. And the one i really like is this musical instrument".(...)