Under the theme “Textile Innovation”, this initiative was attended by around 40 Portuguese and Brazilian businessmen, who were able to debate what has been most innovative in the textile area.

The first intervention was in charge of Professor Raul Fangueiro, coordinator of the platform, where the theme “Innovation with Fiber” was introduced. This was followed by Fernando Cunha, a researcher at Fibrenamics, who addressed the theme of “Advanced Fiber Composites: the case of transport and construction”. After a moment of pause / coffee-break, the researcher at Fibrenamics, Juliana Cruz, proceeded to her exhibition that focused on the theme of “Nanotechnology in Textile Innovation: the case of health and sport”. The presentation of the projects ended with the researcher Raquel Carvalho making known “High Performance Advanced Fibers and Structures: The Case of Protection and Architecture”. After the presentations, there was a moment of discussion and debate.

The event also featured a lunch, which promoted conviviality, knowledge sharing and networking among participants. At the end of the lunch, all participants had the opportunity to visit two textile companies, MoreTextile Group and Tearfil.

The 1st Luso-Brazilian Workshop aimed to make Brazilian companies aware of cutting-edge innovation and to make a technological benchmarking. Karine Liotino, ABIT's innovation manager, defended this position stressing that “it is very important that we bring them [Brazilian companies] here so they can see what is happening in the most innovative world, that they are able to open up to new partnerships and development of new cooperative projects. ” In addition, ABIT intends to publicize Fibrenamics in Brazil and, in this sense, this association has already started planning a series of events where Fibrenamics will be present.

For Sónia Guimarães, from MoreTextile Group, the event was “fruitful, both for Brazilian companies to know what is most technological and innovative in Portugal and Europe, and also to learn how the university establishes, through the Fibrenamics platform , partnerships with industry that generate added value for companies ”. Sylvio Napoli, from ABIT, stressed that this event came to demonstrate once again that the University of Minho "is well known for the practical application of its studies" and, taking into account that the paradigm of the textile industry is changing, since today nowadays, textiles are already seen as being more than the clothing, home, table and bath sector, “here [in this event] this trend was very well developed (…), you could see this perfectly through the presentations, which were very detailed , and with a very good technical level ”, added Sylvio Napoli. Ramiro Palma, from Anfra, said that “it was a very good experience” and that this event was extremely relevant, since “it is very important for us to look for models or information that precede our entry into our production process and see that the way is that these materials, these new technologies can contribute to the product that we come to develop and also take to the market ”.

This event took place within the innovation and knowledge transfer activities of the platform, which has acted, over the last few years, as a connector and catalyst between companies and universities for the development of new products and materials.