Picking the right events for your diary!
Welcome to 2012 – that is if you use the Gregorian calendar! For other people using different dating systems, I gather that you may still be waiting for your New Year to come around. Certainly though, by the time this editorial appears in published form, the Chinese New Year will also be behind us so another quarter of humanity will have been introduced into a new year albeit with a different year count than 2012. And what will the New Year hold for us? Although our politicians and world leaders tell us that the path ahead is fraught with difficulties, I would, without doubt, like to think that it will hold something good and special for each of us.
At any rate, I am quite sure that most of you are now busy making plans and filling up your new diaries with things that you do not want to forget or miss during the coming year. Hence, I presume, you will not mind me grabbing the opportunity to mention two very significant dates worth inking into your diary. The first is Stainless Steel World’s Duplex Seminar and Summit that will take place in Stresa, Italy, September 26–27, 2012. It promises to be something quite spectacular and will be quite unlike most formal conferences & expos you have visited. It will be an ‘open-source’ event where suppliers and vendors will get together to discuss innovations and new applications in an informal setting. As such they will update each other from the end-user industry about the availability of grades and products and discuss manufacturing and fabrication/welding issues of duplex stainless steels. There will be networking lounges, seminars, workshops and exhibiting companies all helping to provide a platform for the dissemination of information to further advance the knowledge and application of duplex stainless steels within the global market. True to Stainless Steel World tradition there will also be time to party in luxuriant Italian style at the Duplex event!
And then on to the Stainless Steel World Americas Conference and Expo that will be held for the eighth time in Houston, October 16 and 17th. The 2012 conference will be very much orientated to providing solutions for end-users. The scene will be set with plenary lectures, solution focused workshops, and a collection of technical presentations based on real-world experiences and practical applications of stainless steels and corrosion resistant alloys. Once again the two-day conference will be complemented by an expo showcasing all the latest technologies and developments and there will be ample opportunity to network. If you still want to submit a paper then you have until February, 15th so get those skates on!
For more information about either event, please visit
www.stainless-steel-world.net and then go to the Live tab on the home page.
That Stainless Steel World can put on excellent events is illustrated by the statistics for the recent conference & expo held in Maastricht, 29 November to 1 December, 2011, which broke all records. Official attendance figures revealed that the event was visited by 5465 high-quality members of the stainless steel community. This number was 1654 (21.4%) more than at the previous event in 2009. Following along these lines, delegate attendance at the conference was up 10.4% on 2009 figures (276 delegates as opposed to 250). The number of exhibiting companies remained roughly the same as in 2009, with 235 international companies from all corners of the globe there to display their wares and share their knowledge. This was nevertheless a very good figure considering the tough economic conditions the industry is currently facing. For more information on this event please see pp. 39–42 this issue.
Best regards,
Don’t miss the movies!
Whatever you do, do not miss what was said at the Stainless Steel World 2011 Conference & Expo by some of the world’s leading experts who attended. Go to
www.stainless-steel-world.net and click on the Editor’s Choice Video link. You will not be disappointed.