About BFT Lab:

The crossroads between the fashion world and different technologies, until now only within reach of a chosen few, has opened the doors to a whole emerging branch of research with enormous economic and innovative potential. Everything indicates that the trend towards incorporating technology to clothes, accessories and anything we put on our bodies will grow to meet needs not covered until now and to find new ways of communicating with others in our everyday lives that must also be designed and improved. In a sector that has kept its productive processes on a rather straight line in recent decades, this field will give rise to new kinds of jobs and business opportunities within the reach of any company that has access to tools, knowledge and methods to design interaction which will set them apart from their competitors.

By means of a training and accompaniment programme encompassing the main disciplines on course to acquire prominence in the world of fashion (3D printing for production, including sensors to generate other kinds of interaction, the use of new intelligent materials, among others), Bilbao Fashion Tech Lab (BFT Lab) wants to place the sector in a competitive position comparable to that of similar companies in the big capital cities of the world in addition to acting as a catalyst of this underlying potential through product innovation, training and communication/outreach.

BFT Lab represents an obvious opportunity to generate potential job opportunities in Bilbao and connections between fashion, design and technology professionals. A total of 5 companies will receive accompaniment in designing their first technology prototypes, which can later be commercialised, and at least 100 people will receive training through the different workshops on initiation to new technologies, materials and methods for their use in interaction design. The programme is designed to obtain, within 6 months, a complete community of technologists, designers, companies and organisations connected to the fashion sector which work together on the basis of steady partnerships. The aim is to accompany the sector in order to empower it and to place the city among the leaders of the race in this technology cycle change. More info at: http://bilbaoftlab.com