I just got back from an amazing Autodesk conference in Las Vegas and am leaving tonight for the Netherlands via Oxford, England (where I will get a chance to see Jayme).
I was invited to give a lecture at “SLEM”, an international innovation and education institute for footwear, located in Wallwijk, in the south of the Netherlands. “SLEM” is an acronym for Shoes, Leather, Education, and Museum. I’ll be covering material that is in the article I wrote, “Race to Build a Better Shoe,” published earlier this year in the IEEE journal. This will be a special seminar devoted to designing shoes around health, called Footwear Health Tech Conference (FHTC).
I’ll talk about the research that informs the design of OESH shoes. Then I will talk about our innovative sole making process, not typical to standard shoe-manufacturing, utilizing a variety of specialized materials and tooling that give our OESH La Vida’s (all six colors!) that unique feel that no other shoe provides.
I will also give a sneak preview into the exciting work we’ve been doing with 3D printing. Initially, only folks who happened into the factory this past year who’ve seen, besides shoes, all the specialized 3D printers and extruders that we’ve been designing and building, have known what we’ve been up to. But word has been getting out via our many collaborators in the process, through various Universities, the National Science Foundation, Autodesk, material suppliers, and others. Sometime soon, I promise, we’ll be offering a 3D printed awesomeness exclusively to our current OESHers.
If you happen to be in the Netherlands next Wednesday, contact the folks at SLEM to inquire about seeing my talk. And no matter where you are, you better get that Christmas order in for your new La Vida’s before all those hard-working elves call it a day for the season.
Viva La Vida!
