It’s time to plan for the upcoming Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) 2019 conference, which will be in Chicago, Illinois, from March 31 – April 4, 2019. Among the many opportunities to learn about various additive technologies, you’ll meet the keynote speakers for the conference. These speakers will address additive manufacturing from experiences that crawl at a fraction of an inch per minute to those running at 200 miles per hour. Although the applications are vastly different, each keynote speaker will enthuse and inform the audience.

Brad Keselowski, a NASCAR driver and owner/founder of Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing (KAM), Brian McLean, director of rapid prototype for LAIKA, and Todd Grimm, president of T. A. Grimm & Associates, will engage, challenge and excite conference attendees when they take the AMUG stage.

“We are extremely excited about our 2019 AMUG Conference keynote speakers. They will provide a snapshot of the most transformative ideas shaping the AM industry today,” said Gary Rabinovitz, AMUG chairman and chair of AMUG’s program committee.

Brad Keselowski will be the keynote speaker on Tuesday, April 2, with a presentation titled Winning the Manufacturing Race. He is a full-time driver in the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series.  As a championship driver across two racing series, Keselowski understands the important role manufacturing plays across multiple industries, including motorsports and automotive. That understanding, coupled with his passion for technological innovations, led him to build KAM. In his keynote, he will share his experiences where technology, like AM, can help companies win the race and its impact not only within automotive, but across multiple sectors.

Rabinovitz said, “Winning with AM spans many industries, disciplines and applications. With our keynote speakers, we will show how this can materialize from extremely different viewpoints. Brad builds his presentation from the world of racing, while Brian presents winning from the vantage point of moving small, visually interesting characters for stop-motion animation.”

On Thursday, April 4, Brian McLean will treat AMUG attendees to a visual journey showing how 3D printing has helped redefine stop-motion animation. His presentation, The Art and Science behind LAIKA’s Oscar Award Winning 3D Printing Process, will explore over a decade of creative and technical developments and groundbreaking animation. LAIKA is world renowned for its stunning films such as Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and KUBO and the Two Strings. The studio’s newest film, Missing Link will be in theaters April 12, 2019.  McLean has been at the heart of LAIKA’s work that fuses the age-old art form of stop-motion with cutting-edge, 21^st-century technology of 3D printing. He has received a Scientific and Engineering Oscar plaque for pioneering the use of AM in stop-motion animation and an Academy Award nomination for Outstanding Visual Effects for his contributions to Kubo and the Two Strings.

Todd Grimm is returning as a keynote speaker and will kick off the conference on Monday, April 1, with Additive Manufacturing: Making Your Own Reality. He promises to wrap insights, observations, and guidance around his summary of recent developments in AM. Grimm, who is an AMUG DINO recipient and AMUG’s AM industry advisor, has been asked to once again start the AMUG Conference with an enthusiasm that will kickstart the event and set the tone for a week of user-to-user interactions.

On Wednesday, April 3, the featured presentation will be the Innovators Showcase, which is an on-stage, conversational interview that elicits valuable insights and personal stories from AM industry leaders. This year’s guest of honor is Professor Gideon Levy of Technology Turn Around (TTA).

Designed for both novice and experienced additive manufacturing users, the AMUG Conference agenda topics range from technology basics to advanced applications to business considerations. The conference will have nearly 200 presentations, workshops and hands-on training sessions. A preliminary agenda is available at www.amug.com/conference-agenda-planner/. The AMUG Conference will be held March 31 – April 4, 2019, at the Hilton Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. Conference details and registration are available at www.amug.com.

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