The TecnoCampus Congress Centre hosted the ‘Digital and sustainable transition of the textile and fashion value chain in Catalonia’ innovation conference attended by some 150 delegates from businesses, industry associations and governments. The presentations underscored the textile and fashion value chain’s eagerness to address sustainability as an opportunity for growth and setting up new businesses through innovation. Hence the sector is committed to a strategy aimed at harnessing sustainability and digitalisation challenges in order to be more competitive, grow and reindustrialise operations in Catalonia.
This innovation capacity was demonstrated by the projects submitted at the Reimagine Textile Awards, jointly organised by Mataró Town Council, the Eurecat technology centre and TecnoCampus. This programme provides entrepreneurs, start-ups and companies in the industry with an incubation facility and FabLAB (fabrication and prototyping textile laboratory) for generating new businesses. Yesterday’s winners were Sustein (Innovation Plus and Sustainability and Circular Economy Awards), Ubra (Functional Textile Award) and Rrent (Digital Business Model Award). All of them will benefit from a subsidised stay in the incubator in addition to the prize money. Likewise, the awards panel also gave a special mention to the start-up Infinite Athletic.
Prior to the conference, a working session was held as part of ACTE at which industrial policy entrepreneurs from Mataró, Sabadell, Igualada, Terrassa and Manresa, the main Catalan cities with a textile background, came together with the chairs of trade associations, clusters and technology centres specialising in the textile and fashion value chain to share regional experiences of economic development in the industry. They also jointly identified present and future challenges in order to enhance business competitiveness at a time when local production is making a comeback.
