FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GARPA Members Meet in South Africa and Germany

FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, USA, December 5, 2001—Representatives from the Global Alliance of Rapid Prototyping Associations (GARPA) attended Global Summit 2001, GARPA's annual meeting, on November 12 in Stellenbosch, South Africa, near Cape Town. The Rapid Product Development Association of South Africa, launched one year ago, hosted the event. GARPA is made up of 15 groups and associations in Australia, Canada, mainland China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.

The summit in South Africa was GARPA's fourth annual meeting. Last year, the alliance met in Paris, France, and the two previous years, in the USA. Global Summit 2002 will be held in Beijing, China, in August and will coincide with the Second International Conference on Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing 2002 at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

GARPA members also met on November 30 in Frankfurt, Germany, following a special rapid prototyping (RP) conference held in conjunction with EuroMold 2001, a trade fair that brings together more than 50,000 people from around the world. As a way to show appreciation to those who supported the meeting, several gifts and prizes worth more than $30,000 were given to GARPA members and others in attendance. Top prizes included the Geomagic Studio 4.0 software from Raindrop Geomagic valued at $20,000 and a complete resin fill for an SLA 250 stereolithography machine (valued at $9,000) from DSM Somos. A similar GARPA event was held last year at EuroMold in Frankfurt.

GARPA serves as a catalyst for the exchange of information on rapid prototyping and tooling around the world. GARPA activities include technical presentations at industry conferences, the publication of application case studies, business meetings, social events, and the informal sharing of information among its members. The alliance was founded in 1998 by Terry Wohlers of Wohlers Associates, Inc. and Dr. Ian Gibson of the University of Hong Kong. Both serve as advisors to the alliance. For more information on GARPA, visit www.garpa.org.

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