The Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) has opened new headquarters close to MIT campus, an initiative that represents significant MIT investment in advanced manufacturing innovation. The facility includes a fabric discovery centre that provides end-to-end prototyping from fibre design to system integration of new textile-based products. The centre will be used for education and workforce development in the Cambridge and greater Boston community.
AFFOA headquarters also includes startup incubation space for companies spun out from MIT and other partners who are innovating advanced fabrics and fibres for applications ranging from apparel and consumer electronics to automotive and medical devices.
MIT was a founding member of the AFFOA team that partnered with the Department of Defence in April 2016 to launch this new institute as a public-private partnership through an independent nonprofit also founded by MIT. AFFOA’s chief executive officer is Yoel Fink. Prior to his current role, Fink led the AFFOA proposal last year as professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Research Laboratory for Electronics at MIT, with his vision to create a fabric revolution. That revolution under Fink’s leadership was grounded in new fibre materials and textile manufacturing processes for fabrics that see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, and monitor health.