Natasha Spackey

Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA)

Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), is a non-profit Institute headquartered in Cambridge, MA and is one of the newest members of the Manufacturing USA Institutes. AFFOA's mission is to rekindle the domestic textiles industry by leading a nationwide enterprise for advanced fiber & fabric technology development and manufacturing, enabling revolutionary system capabilities for national security and commercial markets. At the heart of this revolution is a simple premise: highly functional textile-systems necessitate sophisticated fiber-device components. To pursue this mission, AFFOA addresses the spectrum of manufacturing challenges associated with volume manufacturing of revolutionary fibers and textiles from design to end products. AFFOA facilitates the transition of these revolutionary fiber and textiles from the laboratory through pilot production, delivering the functionality of semiconductor devices and systems at fiber length, uniformity, and cost. AFFOA leads the convergence of semiconductor technology into fiber and textile production to commercialize textile products that see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, regulate temperature, monitor health, and change color while delivering the conventional qualities of textiles to benefit the commercial consumer and warfighter.