Congress attendance in New York is strong

Emily M. Smith
ASME NEWS

In the shadow of Ground Zero and in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, total attendance at ASME's 2001 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in November reached a level not seen in nearly a decade.

More than 4,000 people traveled to New York City, two months after Sept. 11, to participate in the 497 technical sessions related to the highlight topic of the meeting: "Progress through Partnership: Team Approaches to Today's Technology." With participants numbering 4,134, the 2001 Congress had the highest number of total attendees since 1993.

The 2001 meeting also marked the debut for ASME's new program of technology tracks, a format in which all Congress sessions will be packaged by theme instead of discipline. The focus of the 2001 interdisciplinary track was nanotechnology.

ASME President William A. Weiblen cuts the ribbon to open the exhibit hall.

 

The kickoff event for the track and the Congress was a keynote panel session on Nov. 12, during which several nanotechnology experts discussed their research into the developing technology and their vision for its applications.

Harold Craighead, director of the Nanobiotechnology Center at Cornell University, where he is a professor of applied and engineering physics, talked about nanoelectromechanical systems. James J. Marek, Jr., the co-founder, president and CEO of the California Molecular Electronics Corp., discussed the business aspects of this emerging technology.

Airport closings following the crash of an American Airlines plane that departed from JFK airport on the morning of Nov. 12 prevented one of the scheduled panelists, Michael L. Simpson, the founder and principal investigator of the Nanoscale Technologies Research Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, from arriving in time to participate.

The keynote panel session was the prelude to the official opening of the exhibit hall, which took place immediately after the panel session ended and ASME President William A. Weiblen, P.E., cut the ribbon to open the exhibit hall.

Samuel L. Venneri, associate administrator and chief technologist at NASA, addresses the audience during a special session on "Technology vs. Terrorism: Designing Against the Threat of Assault."

 

The first special event of the Congress was the "Technology vs. Terrorism: Designing Against the Threat of Assault" session, in which eight experts discussed developing and existing technology to thwart future terrorist assaults. (See "Engineers Will Lead Charge in Battle of Technology vs. Terrorism" in last month's issue of ASME NEWS, or visit www. asme.org.)

Several hundred people attended the event, which was organized by ASME soon after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Dean Kamen, president and CEO of Deka, talked about the value of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) to the engineering world during his plenary address.

 

 

During the weeklong Congress, participants roamed the exhibit hall to collect information from the nearly 60 companies that had booths on the floor. Eight of those companies were first-time exhibitors. They included AMTI, a biotech company; Hysitron, a nanotechnology company, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Although the number of companies exhibiting at Congress was the same as in 2000, the amount of booth space grew by 2,020 square feet. This was an increase of more than 20 percent in paid exhibitors.

In the Publications Center, the major change was the new format for the conference publications. Instead of publishing 45 to 65 bound volumes and another 60 technical papers, ASME issued all conference volumes on three CD-ROMs.

Attendees were able to examine the CDs on one of the five computers that were available at the Publications Center. The computers also enabled attendees to locate needed information, and printed out individual papers.

Most attendees indicated that they preferred the papers' electronic format and appreciated the increased number of papers provided with registration. With few exceptions, the navigation of the CD was mastered with little difficulty.