Track 1: Design & Prototyping - Digital (3D) Footwear Transformation Events

Track 1: Digital Design and Prototyping
This first track is about building the right fundamentals for digital transformation in terms of organization, knowledge, skills and applications. We will focus on setting up the entire process of digital design and prototyping, helping you answer essential questions such as:
How do I set up a digital creation team or get buy-in?
How can we digitize our material supply chain?
How can we create a digital design archive so we can make optimal use of the tooling we already have?
Which design and visualization software would I need, both short- and long-term?
What does this mean for my team? Do I skill up, outsource, or both?
What software and hardware can we use to visualize digital designs in virtual prototypes to help development teams, to get faster and more cost effective line reviews internally among sales teams, and to help in sales pitches to retailers?
REGISTRATION
Track 1 is just $75
BUNDLE DEAL: All 4 tracks are just $250
Bundle option is available when you register for each track
REGISTER FOR TRACK 1
Video Class 1: Laying the Foundations
In this video class, we start by analyzing your current design process and identifying where and how you should start digitization, and how you could define clear KPIs and calculate ROI.
Video Class 2: Choosing the Right Digital Design
In this video class, we look at what software is available for digital footwear design and how to make the best choice for your team and budget. We also look at how to define training needs.
LIVE Video Class May 15: Answering Questions for Weeks 1 & 2
In this live video class, several of our experts will answer your questions for weeks 1 and 2 of Track 1. The class will take place at 11:00 AM PST | 2:00 PM EST | 8:00 PM CET. If you cannot join live, you can watch the recording.
Video Class 3: Digital Materials
In this video class, we will talk about how to set up a digital material library and how to connect this to your design software and PLM system.
Video Class 4: Prototyping
In this video class, we will focus on how digitization can optimize.
LIVE Video Class May 29: Answering Questions for Weeks 3 & 4
In this live video class, several of our experts will answer your questions for weeks 3 and 4 of Track 1. The class will take place at 11:00 AM PST | 2:00 PM EST | 8:00 PM CET. If you cannot join live, you can watch the recording.
Speakers
Meet your expert trainers in Track 1!

Mitch Harvey
3D Innovation Manager
Deckers Brands
Mitch has been an expert in 3D footwear for more than a decade. In his current role as 3D Innovation Manager at Deckers Brands, he is implementing a holistic approach to automatically generate patterns, costing, and bill of materials using virtual prototypes at the very beginning stages of the design process. He has collaborated with numerous software companies to develop footwear specific tools to streamline the digital creation process.
Darren Glenister
CEO
Material Exchange
Darren has worked in software and digital transformation technologies for fashion and retail for over 20 years. He brings his extensive experience and vision for innovative technologies in emerging markets to the Material Exchange, a platform that works directly with the world's leading retail apparel and footwear brands to analyze, optimize, and digitize their supply chains. The Material Exchange promotes best practices for product creation, data management and PLM integration.
Andrey Golub
Co-founder ELSE Corp
GM Italy ICOL Group
Andrey is internationally known for his achievements in virtual retail, but this time he is showing another side of his knowledge and his company, helping footwear brands to set up their digital design flow in the most efficient way possible, so they can be "smart from the start". His low-cost, cloud-based applications that are specialized for footwear make it possible to work quickly and do not necessarily require staff to have any kind of 3D design training.
Jean-Marc Pedeboy
Partner
STRATEGIES–Romans CAD 3D Footwear Design
A founding partner of Strategies, Jean-Marc has helped developed collaborative solutions for the footwear industry for 25 years. As digitalization becomes more demanding, his company is moving beyond CAD to FIM (Footwear Information Model), an integration of 3D/2DCAD with material database, enabling brands to connect with users. 3D virtual models are sent to the marketplace to detect trends before going to actual manufacturing, minimizing costly mistakes. FIM also offers a new and realistic shopping experience by making Fashion to Factory a reality.
Jelle Stienstra
Digital Strategy Director
PTTRNS.ai
Patterns.ai is an artificial intelligence company specializing in digital personalization of consumer lifestyle products. The company has developed groundbreaking optical recognition software that could be used for a wide range of purposes in fashion. You will hear how this technology can be applied to help designers quickly select the right last or sole mold from archives of existing tooling, saving the cost of unnecessary production of new tooling and lowering companies' footprint.
Sponsors
Thanks to our generous event sponsors!

Reimagining the way brands and suppliers interact with materials, Material Exchange, an industry-backed platform, provides a solution which allows for the rapid visualization of materials, automates data input and improves communication between brands, material suppliers and manufacturers.
The Footwearists, a membership-based innovation and education platform for and by footwear professionals, offers conferences, lectures, online courses, and consulting. Working with companies across the supply chain on meaningful, innovative footwear industry projects, they add emotional, functional, social, and ecological value.
Pioneering software for creative industries for over 20 years, Foundry's products help tackle complex visualization challenges to meet the demands of their customers and projects. Their industry know-how and focus on speed, quality, and user-experience save customers time so they can spend it bringing incredible ideas to life.
Romans CAD Software tools enable companies to boost productivity and get the best return on investment available on the market. With more than 25 years of experience in the industry, RCS has proven track record of maximizing the potential of world-class companies.
Technology makes it possible and necessary to rethink how we interact with brands and products, and Volumental believes in a future where retailers connect with shoppers through genuine personalization. Their omnichannel ecosystem is a universe of conversations with your customers, where each unique foot shape is brought into focus from lost to a sea of sizing tables.
Retailers, brands, manufacturers and wholesalers worldwide use First Insight's digital product testing solution platform to design, select, price, buy, and market more successful new products. Through Bayesian AI modeling, machine learning, and APIs, First Insight’s predictive analytics platform provides a powerful, scalable, and easy-to-integrate solution informing the product assortment decisions retailers face every season.