HARTING, a global leader in the connector industry headquartered in Germany, has joined MTL's Microsystems Industrial Group (MIG). Mr. Jon DeSouza, President and CEO of HARTING, Inc. of North America, will be the MIG representative.
As a launch event for the new membership, on October 1, 2015, MTL hosted the senior management of HARTING to an afternoon of presentations at MIT. HARTING develops, manufactures and sells connectors, device connection technology and network components for use in mechanical and plant engineering, broadcasting and entertainment, factory automation, power generation and distribution as well as industrial electronics and telecommunications. HARTING USA is the North America subsidiary of HARTING.
At the Oct. 1 meeting, representing HARTING were Mr. Dietmar Harting, President and Chairman of the Board; Mrs. Margrit Harting, Senior Vice President; Mr. Philip F.W. Harting, President; Dr. Frank Brode, Senior Vice President; Mr. Uwe Grӓff, Managing Director; and Mr. Jon DeSouza, President of HARTING North America.
From left, Dr. William Holber, Mr. Jon DeSouza, Dr. Frank Brode, Mrs. Margrit Harting. Mr. Dietmar Harting, Mr. Philip Harting, Mr. Uwe Grӓff, and Professor Jesús del Alamo
The morning technical session began with an introduction to MTL by MTL Director Professor Jesús del Alamo. Dr. Frank Brode, Senior Vice President of Quality and New Products for HARTING, then gave an overview of HARTING's business and interests in engaging with MIT: "MTL Partnership Objectives, Expectations and Fund Allocations". In its partnership with MTL, HARTING seeks to gain greater understanding of the future use of smart connectors which will play, for example, a critical role in the Internet of Things.
The program continued with four talks by MTL faculty. Professor John Hart from Mechanical Engineering spoke on "Manufacturing of Carbon Nanotube Surfaces". Dr. Luis Velasquez from MTL presented "Advanced manufacturing of micro and nano-enabled systems". Professor Lionel Kimerling from Materials Science and Engineering presented "Photonic Interconnection: Why, How, and When?" Finally, Professor David Perreault from EECS spoke on "Overview of the MIT Power Electronics Research Group".
The group then carried out a tour of Professor Anantha Chandrakasan's laboratory that included system demonstrations by Dr. Nathan Ickes and graduate students Arun Paidimarri, Chiraag Juvekar, Dina El-Damak, Nachiket Desai, and Dongsuk Jeon. The general theme of the demonstrations was "Security, low-power, energy harvesting".
Tour of Professor Anantha Chandrakasan's laboratory.
This was followed by three additional presentations. Professor Jeffrey Lang from EECS spoke about "Energy harvesting and connectors". Professor Rajeev Ram of EECS presented "Photonic Interfaces: Computing and Medicine". Professor Sang-Gook Kim from Mechanical Engineering spoke on "Energy Harvesting: photo, electro, mechanical and chemical interfaces."
The visit concluded with a group dinner at a local restaurant where everyone had a great time. The visit was deemed a great success by the participants and provides a solid beginning to HARTING's involvement at MIT.
--Bill Holber, MTL Associate Director, Industrial Relations; 11/6/2015