Fingers-On Experiences and Profession Pathways Return To Encourage the Subsequent Era
McLean, Va. (December 4, 2025) — The Smartforce Pupil Summit will return to IMTS – The Worldwide Manufacturing Know-how Present, Sept. 14-19, 2026, at McCormick Place in Chicago. This may mark the summit’s 14th version since its launch in 1998. Coproduced for the second time by AMT – The Affiliation For Manufacturing Know-how and SME, the 2026 summit will as soon as once more convey collectively hundreds of scholars, educators, and business professionals to discover the applied sciences, careers, and alternatives driving the way forward for manufacturing.
The Smartforce Pupil Summit has grow to be a cornerstone of IMTS since its inception. It was designed to spark curiosity amongst college students and educators from all ranges of training in careers throughout manufacturing expertise sectors. The 2026 summit will return to Corridor C of the North Constructing, putting it on the coronary heart of the IMTS expertise and increasing entry for college kids and educators to expertise the complete scale of the present.
The Pupil Summit appears and looks like a commerce present designed for the subsequent technology that permits college students to be taught and expertise by getting their palms on featured applied sciences. In 2024, almost 15,000 college students, college, and employees from Okay-12 and postsecondary instructional establishments in 49 states attended, with roughly one-third of attendees coming from universities and group or technical schools. They noticed 62 featured exhibitors representing best-in-class business alternatives, applied sciences, and analysis/training capabilities, such because the ARM Institute, BlueForge Alliance, Chicago Public Colleges, FANUC America, Haas Automation, Heidenhain, IACMI – The Composites Institute, Mazak, NASA, High quality Imaginative and prescient Worldwide, Common Robots, Yaskawa, and Zeiss Industrial High quality Options.
“The summit is a sport changer for our business’s expertise pipeline,” says Douglas Okay. Woods, president of AMT – The Affiliation For Manufacturing Know-how. “IMTS provides educators direct publicity to the applied sciences driving in the present day’s manufacturing flooring, inspiring them to raise their tools, curricula, and coaching applications. The result’s a brand new technology of candidates who arrive with stronger expertise and a clearer understanding of business wants. AMT and IMTS are proud to continue to grow the Smartforce Pupil Summit to help the way forward for our workforce.”
For 2026, the Smartforce Pupil Summit will introduce Smartforce Profession Pathways, a digital set up designed to assist IMTS exhibitors promote entry-level profession alternatives on to the hundreds of scholars attending the summit. By interactive job boards and digital listings, college students will be capable to discover early-career positions supplied by taking part IMTS exhibitors.
“The Smartforce Pupil Summit displays what’s potential when business, educators, and organizations like SME and AMT come along with a shared goal,” says Jeannine Kunz, govt director and CEO of SME. “By connecting college students with hands-on applied sciences and actual profession alternatives, we’re strengthening the expertise pipeline and serving to extra younger individuals see manufacturing for the cool, tech-driven business that it’s. This collaboration is important to the expansion, resilience, and way forward for our business.”
The 2026 summit will function dozens of interactive reveals showcasing hands-on demonstrations of robotics, automation, additive manufacturing, CNC machining, precision measurement and metrology, and digital manufacturing applied sciences that attraction to college students of all ages – from elementary to college degree.
The Smartforce Pupil Summit has grow to be a nationwide gathering level for college kids and educators, particularly these touring from the Midwest, together with Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. As participation expands from coast to coast, attendance has grown from about 12,000 in 2022 to almost 15,000 registrants in 2024. Projections for the 2026 summit estimate greater than 16,000 contributors from a good wider geographic combine throughout the nation.
The Smartforce Pupil Summit at IMTS 2026 is free for college kids, educators, college directors, and dad or mum chaperones. IMTS 2026 might be held Sept. 14-19, 2026, at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois. IMTS exhibitors and attendees are inspired to register their members of the family to attend IMTS by way of the Smartforce Pupil Summit. Registration opens in February 2026. For extra data, go to IMTS.com/Smartforce.
Guests to IMTS who want to help STEM and robotics applications also can take part within the Miles for Manufacturing (M4M) 5K Run/Stroll. It is going to be held on Wednesday morning throughout IMTS week, alongside the shores of Lake Michigan. Since 2014, M4M has raised greater than $250,000 for colleges and STEM applications nationwide to help superior manufacturing training. As a result of IMTS covers all manufacturing prices, 100% of the proceeds go straight to those applications. Be taught extra and register for IMTS at IMTS.com.
