It’s Only Common Sense: Hire for Hunger, Train for Skill
Dan’s Biz Bookshelf: ‘The 'NVIDIA Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant’
OE-A Competition 2024 Calls for Inventiveness
July 6, 2023 | OE-AEstimated reading time: 1 minute
“For me personally, the best part of the OE-A Competition is the exciting mix of inspiring, forward-thinking ideas and market-ready products. A goal of the competition is to promote and showcase products and ideas supporting the continuous development of the international market for organic and printed electronics. Looking back at the submissions of the past years we see that sustainability is a leading idea even in early-stage projects. A development which makes us really proud,” says Dr. Klaus Hecker, Managing Director of OE-A (Organic and Printed Electronics Association), an international working group within VDMA.
All companies and institutes are invited to participate in one or more of the three different categories. The projects submitted will be judged by an international panel of judges from renowned companies and institutes in three categories: "Prototypes & New Products"; "Freestyle Demonstrator"; and "Publicly Funded Project Demonstrator". OE-A members are called to submit the application form until October 20, 2023. The final demonstrator must be delivered in January 2024.
In the spotlight at LOPEC
Taking part in the OE-A Competition creates visibility for the participants. All submitted products and demonstrators will be presented to the international community from 06-07 March at LOPEC 2024. A special moment for the winners is the presentation of their awards during an official ceremony at the LOPEC Award Show. OE-A also presents all demonstrators with additional footage year around at oe-a.org. Furthermore OE-A flanks and supports the run of the Competition with press and social media work.
Cast your vote
All LOPEC visitors are invited to vote for their favorite project in the competition. Visitors are invited to make their choice for the "Public Choice Award". "The OE-A stand at LOPEC is very busy with visitors from all over the world exploring the competition ideas and projects on display. They really get involved and inform themselves very well before they cast their vote for the Public Choice Award,” explains Klaus Hecker.
Winner Web Seminar
In addition, the OE-A organizes a web seminar for all winners to present their products to the printed electronics community. The "Winners Web Seminars" are well attended, with an average of more than 100 participants. "Submit the application form by end of October and be part of the OE-A Competition 2024. All submitted ideas and projects will be the winners of international attention," emphasises Klaus Hecker.
Share on:
Testimonial
"Your magazines are a great platform for people to exchange knowledge. Thank you for the work that you do."
Simon Khesin - Schmoll MaschinenSuggested Items
Dan’s Biz Bookshelf: ‘iWar: Fortnite, Elon Musk, Spotify, WeChat, and Laying Siege to Apple’s Empire’
03/04/2026 | Dan Beaulieu -- Column: Dan's Biz Bookshelf"iWar: Fortnite, Elon Musk, Spotify, WeChat, and Laying Siege to Apple’s Empire" is not just a book about Apple, it’s a masterclass in leadership, ego, innovation, and the high cost of brilliance when vision collides with personality. Tim Higgins delivers a sharp, deeply reported account of Apple’s most turbulent years, showing how internal power struggles shaped the products that changed the world.
Technica USA and Electro Design AB Form Strategic Partnership
03/02/2026 | Technica USAOn March 2, 2026, Technica USA announced a strategic partnership with Electro Design AB. Under this agreement, Technica will serve as the Master Distributor in the United States and Canada for Electro Design's automation products for the SMT/PCBA market, marketed under the brand name “Technica, U.S.A. by Electro Design.”
The Performance-enhancing Benefits of Flexible Circuit Technology
02/05/2026 | Joe Fjelstad, Verdant ElectronicsFlexible circuits have been around much longer than most folks realize. My friend, Dr. Ken Gilleo, unquestionably a technology forensics genius, unearthed a British patent issued to Albert Hansen of Germany just after the turn of the last century (Figure 1), which we can easily recognize today as an ancestral flexible circuit. We owe his creativity a great deal of credit for laying the foundation for countless electronic products in use today that employ flex circuits.
Learning With Leo: The Disappearing Manufacturing Engineer
02/04/2026 | Leo Lambert -- Column: Learning With LeoManufacturing engineers are the firefighters of the manufacturing process, but as the industry changes the roles of the manufacturing engineer and manufacturing facilities export their manufacturing offshore, what happens to the function, viability, and knowledge of the manufacturing engineer? Where design engineering was known as a profession, manufacturing engineering was known as a job, not a career path. Although I was disappointed about that at the time, now I look back and wonder about the truth of that statement.
Learning with Leo: The Cost of Training on Skills and Knowledge Development
01/07/2026 | Leo Lambert -- Column: Learning With LeoThe ability to manufacture electronic products requires specific skills and knowledge, which have traditionally been developed through on-the-job experience and training. These experiences and training programs are expensive to implement, yet they are necessary to meet customer demands and remain competitive in the marketplace. Today, manufacturers, including government contractors, rely on industrial specifications in the design, fabrication, and assembly of electronic products.