On 18th February, AEI Tèxtils participated at the kick-off meeting of a new project, HACKTEX – Innovative smart textiles and entrepreneurship.
HACKTEX is co-financed by the European Commission’s ERASMUS + program under the Cooperation partnerships in higher education call with the Grant Agreement number 2021-1-RO01-KA220-HED-000027527. It started on 1st February 2022, has a duration of 30 months and a total budget of 398.175 €.
The project coordinator is Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi from Romania, and it counts with the participation, as partners, of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and AEI Tèxtils, both established in Terrassa (Spain); University of West Attica (UNIWA) and CRE.THI.DEV in Greece, the CIAPE in Italy, University of Borås in Sweden and the company Titera in Slovenia.
HACKTEX aims to endow with resilience, versatility and innovation the textile sector in Europe by addressing the gaps and mismatches detected between academia and the industry. HACKTEX will also facilitate new opportunities for the textile sector by connecting with other industries and its knowledge.
These goals will be addressed by the design and test of new educational methodological tools within the involved higher education institutions as well as with the research on smart textiles and their multiple applications.
As a result, the project will produce several innovative contents related to smart textiles and their potential applications in medicine, automotive and aeronautics, sports, personal protective, and living and building, among others.
This content will follow an educational methodology designed in such way that will enable students, as future textile sector specialists, to explore new textile applications and products as well as to tackle potential barriers and limitations.
Main results of the project will be: a training methodology and syllabus; a virtual training program as a MOOC on functional and smart textiles with specific videos, and training materials; an industrial smart textiles bootcamp training program for intensive summer education course; a virtual methodological guide focused on entrepreneurship in smart textiles and a project handbook of good practices about virtual training tools and blended methodologies to foster smart textiles into the manufacturing sector.
