International Symposium on Digital Fabrication - 2015

Digital Fabrication is revolutionary technology that will change the way we fabricate everything, from machine parts, concrete structures, auto-parts, prosthetics, body organs, foods, printed circuit boards, to almost everything. It is a technology which will place manufacturing in the hands of individuals and dramatically increase innovations. Though the technology has been around for some time, its true potential is beginning to make an impression with portable 3D printers. The impact of this technology could be far more revolutionary than even the Internet.

Digital Fabrication processes create objects by material addition instead of removal. Paired with Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools, digital fabrication facilitates the creation of new types of objects with unique geometrical and material properties, which cannot be created using conventional means. Advances in materials, electronics, modelling interfaces, and material distribution over the last two and half decades have vaulted digital fabrication from a simple method for producing three-dimensional prototypes to a viable option for low-volume manufacturing of components ranging from bio-materials to titanium parts to foods to prosthetics.

Our objective is to take digital fabrication to a much broader and multifaceted level. We call this Things-2-Bytes-2-Things (TBT). This brings together researchers and developers from a large number of disciplines: Mechanical Engineering, Material Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Enginering, Civil Engineering, Chemistry and many more.

As a first step in that direction, IIT Hyderabad, Deakin University (Australia) and Keio University (Japan;Research Project "COI-T Innovation for Creating a Better Life") are organising a symposium at IIT Hyderabad on the theme of "Digital Fabrication". This symposium is partially supported by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and TEQIP, NPIU, GoI.