Micro- and nanotechnologies in the spotlight:expert discussion at the 16th annual World Micromachine Summit in Dortmund.

Last week the international micro- and nanotechnology community met in Dortmund, Germany on the occasion of the 16th international Micromachine Summit. The summits is an annual conference, which shows a snapshot of industrial, scientific and political micro and nano activities worldwide. The event was initiated in 1995 by the Micromachine Center in Japan. This year, about 100 delegates from some 20 nations held a meeting about „AAL-Ambient Assisted Living“ and disscussed improvements and political strategies of the  countries with a view to funding and the utilization of new technologies. The aim of AAL-technologies is to open up   age-based assistence systems for more quality of everyday life. In future, micro- and nanotechnologies will be able to help longterm care patients for example with telemedicine.

Only invited delegates of the world-leading high-tech nations have been invited to the 5 days lasting conference.
From April 26 to 28, the international visitors could get a general idea of micro-and nanotechnology in Germany during some technical tours, visiting companies and institutes like Bosch in Reutlingen, KIT in Karlsruhe or Boehringer Ingelheim microparts in Dortmund. On April 29 and 30, the lectures, annual reports and a networking event took place in the city of Dortmund.
All experts’ presentations will soon be released to the public: Via http://www.mms10.org > program all reports can be retrieved and downloaded. 

The Micromachine Summit was organized by the IVAM Microtechnology Network. Prof. Dr. Roland Zengerle from university of Freiburg was chairman of this conference. The event was supported by sponsors. 

Sponsors of the Micromachine Summit 2010:
Boehringer Ingelheim microparts, Raith, iX-factory und ELMOS Semiconductor, arias GmbH and HSG-IMIT from Germany, EV Group from Austria, HANNOVER MESSE, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, NRW-Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Cluster Mikro, Nano und Werkstoffe NRW, MST.factory from Dortmund and the dortmund-project.