The pandemic still has its firm grip on the global economy, on supply chains and productions, but nonetheless the network managed to turn the last 12 months into the busiest months since the launch of MGA: 9 companies, one idea – and the MGA network was born. This happened in 2016, so this year we celebrated the 5th birthday of MGA and the countless achievements of the past years. Check out what happened since June 2016…

Potential growth is something everyone is looking for – and we achieved it when it comes to our members. In the past 12 months we welcomed 32 more members into the network, ending the year with the astonishing number of 141 members. Check out who is part of the network!

Our Working Groups have met virtually more times than we can count to produce amazing results:

• Our Education Working Group published a Training Modul Catalogue.
• WeBoostAM became so much more than a slogan and our knowledge database really kicked off this past year.
• Our Mobility Working Group Materials has hosted the first successful “Fuck-Up-Night”, they are establishing a new task force focusing on WAAM, they are dabbling with the topic of printing copper and the Round Robin Test is once again on the table.
• We kicked-off two new Medical Working Groups and both Hospitals and Pharmaceutics are already starting to earn their keep.
• With Aero+Space we left earthbound mobility behind and focus on AM in the aviation sector and the new Working Group is starting to attract a lot of attention from our members
• Medical Approval has not only published the MDR Decision Tree, they also hosted a very successful workshop for orthopaedic and medical technicians on the approval of 3D printed medical products
• A greener future is on everyone’s minds so we also relaunched our Working Group Ecological Sustainability that is focused on making AM the sustainable technology that we all know it can be

Unfortunately the year has not only brought good news: With the passing of Uwe Fresenborg, former chairman of the board and Honorary Member of MGA, we lost one of the most charismatic voices of our industry in April. He is dearly missed!

But as the saying goes, the Show must go on, and so the year went on and was filled with event after event:

• In July we hosted the Women in AM Summit together with IPM and eventhough the AM Forum was held as a digital-only event, quite a few women travelled to Berlin to network with the female representatives of our industry.
• In the summer we celebrated the premier of the MGA KidsCamp and with the amazing support of Autodesk and Ultimaker were able to exited more than 20 children for the topic of 3D printing.
• Every two years we are proud to join our mobility members at the Railway Forum in Berlin and even though the pandemic is still on everyone’s minds, this years Forum hosted by IPM was a great opportunity to spread the word on AM in the railway sector.
• Last year’s Annual Meeting was very special indeed – not only was it one the 5th birthday of our network, you also voted for a third honorary member and for many of you it was the first face-to-face meeting in a long time.
• In November finally the formnext in Frankfurt once again opened it’s doors to welcome the fAMily and we were happy to join Berlin Partner at the Berlin Brandenburg booth and to meet so many of our members at the trade fair.
• Last but not least we premiered another event in November: the AM Medical Days were the most successful event that IPM ever hosted (according to feedback received from their participants) and we cannot wait for next year, when this format will once again take place in Berlin.

Throughout the year, we found the ear of more and more politicians and with the 3D industrial initiative have made it our goal to give the AM industry a unified voice. It was great to see how many members of the German parliament followed our invitation to learn more about Additive Manufacturing.

All in all 2021 has been a challenging year, full of never-seen-before hurdles, but we are proud to say that it has been a very successful year for our network.

None of these achievements would have been possible without each and everyone of our members and we would like to thank you all for your contributions and support and are looking forward to the next year with you!