A member of the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NMMI) Institutes, the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America(AFFOA) is a non-profit institute headquartered on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Its CEO, Dr. Yoel Fink, is also a professor and former Director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. Eric Spackey, its Chief Marketing Officer, is also the President & CEO of Bluewater Defense, a military apparel manufacturer located in Puerto Rico. They join other members of the leadership team in driving the development of fiber devices, one of the technologies the Obama Administration believed would be critical to the future of American fiber and textile manufacturing. AFFOA is partially funded by the U.S. Government, but has also raised almost $340 million in direct investment and cost-sharing contributions to ensure its work is carried on beyond the start-up stage.

“Most people don’t think of MIT as an institution involved with textiles,” Spackey said. “They did have a significant fiber and textile program at one time, given the proximity to powerhouse textile cities, such as Lowell and Lawrence, but during the 1960s the study of textiles was significantly reduced as the focus shifted towards bioengineering. Today, it is being revived in the form of new discoveries at MIT enabling the creation of ‘fiber devices.’ What this means is that at the fiber or thread scale, we can incorporate devices – you might even say the ability to process information like a computer—encased in the fiber and draw it as you would a normal fiber, putting it into fabric. This is the next generation of what fabric will look like.”

Spackey categorizes these developments as the next industrial revolution—Industry 5.0. “Textiles basically haven’t changed for millennia,” he said, “and they have always been selected for look and feel, and protection from the environment, but not high-tech functionality.” Spackey, who comes from the telecom industry, sees a convergence happening between communications technology and fabrics. “Now with cloud computing infrastructure,” he explains, “you can think about creating applications off of those textiles. With Dr. Fink at MIT, a fiber research physicist, we realized we could make these fibers the next form of communications.”