The 2024 4Rev Awards was an amazing event at mHUB ! This is part of a great week unfolding in the Chicagoland area with AMUG (Additive Manufacturing Users Group), the GenAI for Manufacturing (MxD) and the Hard Tech Summit (mHUB).

“The convergence of physical product development and digital processes characterizes the Fourth Industrial Revolution, influencing various disciplines, economies, and industries. At the heart of this revolution are emerging technological advancements in automation, cloud computing and analytics, hardware devices, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more. The impact of this progress can be seen in the ongoing disruption happening within critical industries such as smart manufacturing, medtech, and clean energy.

Industry 4.0 is already reshaping our lifestyles, workplaces, and interpersonal connections. In its vast scale, extensive scope, and intricate complexity, this ongoing transformation signifies a new era defined by unparalleled efficiency, inclusion, precision, and innovation.”

The Fourth Revolution Awards celebrates the visionary leadership and groundbreaking innovation in the region by convening award finalists, industry luminaries, manufacturers, startups, and the vibrant mHUB community. This exclusive event serves as a nexus for networking and celebration of the region’s manufacturing prowess and determined pursuit of global leadership in the evolving innovation landscape.

Congrats to David Girzadas and the City Colleges of Chicago-Richard J Daley College for winning the Community Empowerment Award for its exemplary leadership in championing diversity, equity, and inclusion within innovative technology and advanced manufacturing spaces.

Numorpho Cybernetic Systems (NUMO) is proud to be members at mHUB and MxD. Both organizations have helped foster our growth and progression to instill tenets of Industry 4.0 both in the Mantra M5 genAI based platform for process engineering we are building, and the smart connected mobility products we are creating.

At the event, I was asked by Jela Trask from MxD: What is the difference between mHUB and MxD, and as a startup how does Numorpho fit in?

Here is my explanation:

Physics is the science that explains the very small (particle physics) and the very large (cosmology of the universe) and everything in between. We use quantum mechanics to understand the interactions of particles, and Einstein’s theory of relativity to postulate the workings of space and time. In between Newtonian mechanics helps us with our day-to-day interactions and engineering products and services for daily consumption.

Likewise, mHUB provides the impetus and foundation base for startups to ideate, iterate and collaborate to enable their progression that needs to meander thru the uncertain waters of economic and technological changes.

MxD on the other hand provides a floor where large companies showcase the art of the possible in industrial automation in domains of design for manufacturing, cyber security and supply chain implications.

We incubate at mHUB with the help of their ecosystem partners to mature thru the initial Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) to define, design and prototype our solutions. This is akin to the initial metamorphosis stages of a butterfly.

Once we have the solution ready for the next levels of TRLs, we collaborate on smart manufacturing initiatives at MxD, where our partnership model with tier1s, educational institutions and startups with oversight from MxD enable playbooks to be created.

This two-step approach helps validate our thesis and provide a robust solution for engineering processes. More recently, we have been including genAI to enable blue sky thinking combining them with world model simulations to create a synthetic learned model that combines conversation, cognition, science and engineering.

The MxD’s GenAI for Manufacturing Summit explored the transformative power of GenAI within the enterprise. From dispelling myths to the fundamentals of preparing data, the summit brought together thought leaders, industry experts, and solution providers to examine current and near-future applications of GenAI in the manufacturing domain for a dynamic exploration of the art of the possible and what to do next in developing an enterprises GenAI roadmap for manufacturing.

The Keynote address was by Howard Holton, CTO of GigaOm on The Transformative Role of GenAI for Manufacturing: What Can We Learn from GenAI Hits and Misses

Three Use Cases were discussed

Factory Floor Experience Modules

Chicago is becoming a city that is charting the course for the future of emerging technologies – generative AI, quantum, nanotechnology, clean tech and composite materials. The schools, institutions and the regular conferences that are held here attest to its original definition coined by Daniel Burnham: Make no Little Plans, Think Big!

NITIN UCHIL Founder, CEO & Technical Evangelist
nitin.uchil@numorpho.com