Two Decades Serving Vision

Interview: The EMVA Celebrates 20th Anniversary
On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, we talked with President Dr. Chris Yates about the past, present and future of the European Machine Vision Association.
Bild: EMVA European Machine Vision Association

How did the EMVA come to be founded in 2003?

Dr. Chris Yates: The foundation of the EMVA in 2003 has been the result of a great European initiative. At that time, there had been a couple of national associations and groups promoting the advance and benefits of the still rather new technology „machine vision“. However, these groups were mostly only subdivisions of larger industry associations and very much focused on their national ecosystem.

Considering that the machine vision business has been a very international business already in the early 2000s, it had become clear that a European initiative was needed. Considering further that most of the vision companies all over Europe were small(er) founder-managed companies, it was also clear that these companies would benefit greatly from an association where their needs are top and center. The time was ripe and the industry was ready to join forces cross-border, but we have to thank the machine vision group at VDMA (German Engineering Association) to pick up on this development and put it to action. In 2002, Manfred Hock (then General Secretary of the Machine Vision Group at VDMA) and Gabriele Jansen (then member of the Board of this group) were tasked to take initiative and gather European support for a truly European vision association. Leading players from all over Europe were then invited to send delegates into a European Vision Steering Committee. This was the start of a great pan-European collaboration. All aspects of competition were set aside and vision entrepreneurs and leaders from 12 European countries worked together for a year towards the ideation, the structure and the mission of the European Machine Vision Association. In parallel, this team planned the first ever European Vison Business Conference to take place in 2003 in Barcelona. At this conference, on May 24th 2003, the EMVA was founded by 43 European companies and the first Board of Directors was elected.

Bild: EMVA European Machine Vision Association

What were – in short – the highlights of the last 20 years?

Certainly one highlight from the beginning is the EMVA Business Conference which has taken place in 18 European different metropoles and two times in Barcelona where it all began; not to forget the two virtual conference editions during the pandemic. Standing out as an unforgettable for all those who attended is the 2010 Conference in Istanbul where during the arrivals of the participants the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Island erupted. Flights were cancelled all over Europe and nobody was able to leave the city in a normal manner. This led to adventurous attempts to get back home, from chartered Lear Jets that were still allowed to fly to an 18 hour coach bus tour of some two dozen attendees from Istanbul through the Balkans to Munich.

Looking at the other EMVA activities over the years certainly standardization is one that became increasingly important. International cooperation which was initiated by the foundation of the G3 in 2009 paved the way to globally accepted standards. The EMVA hosted standards GenICam and EMVA1288 evolved to worldwide adopted vision standards, and new standard initiatives such as OOCI are addressing until then unsolved technical issues.

Having been founded under the VDMA umbrella, in 2012 during a memorable general assembly the EMVA finally became an independent, non-for-profit and member owned industry association. Part of the EMVA history is continuity. Already for more than 10 years Thomas Lübkemeier acts as General Manager and five presidents have served the EMVA since its foundation, beginning with Gabriele Jansen, followed by Dr. Mats Gökstorp, Toni Ventura-Traveset, Jochem Herrmann, and the currently acting President Dr. Chris Yates.

In 2013, the first EMVA Young Professional Award was awarded to recognize and support young talents in the industry. In 2016, the European Machine Vision Forum started as a unique annual meeting place for research and industry. And one year later, by recognizing a technological mega trend the EMVA set up the new conference format Embedded Vision Europe (eVe) 2017 in Stuttgart, which was repeated two years later. All this has been acknowledged by the vision tech players and as a result EMVA membership exceeded 150 for the first time last year.

To what extent has the vision market changed during this time and what impact has this on the association’s work?

First and foremost machine vision has evolved from a niche market to a technology adopted in many different industry verticals. Personally, I am convinced that our standardization activities delivered a major contribution to that. With the growing adoption of vision tech the industry matured with all known side effects such as the concentration process with still ongoing M&A activities and a founder generation reaching retirement. We have also seen that external technological trends such as edge computing and minimization heavily influenced machine vision; something that continues with deep learning and AI. This has changed the landscape of vision tech players. Many companies and start-ups don’t have a shop floor heritage anymore. As an association we want to be open for all players and where necessary enter new fields of cooperation such as with the Khronos Group to develop an Embedded Camera API.

Today the EMVA has over 150 members from all over the world, not only from Europe. What is the motivation of companies to join the association?

The EMVA is now the leading European trade association for vision tech and plays an important role in the industry. Vision is an enabling technology for many different verticals, and our members provide many different products and solutions; from image sensors and processors, through cameras and vision components, to complete system solutions. The membership ranges from small companies to major multinationals, as well as research and academic institutes. The uniting theme is an understanding that vision is a strategic topic which enables many different applications and industries, and that continued growth of the market can be helped by participation in a trade association that is solely focused on vision tech.

The EMVA provides many opportunities for companies to meet and establish cooperative partnerships. Many of our members value the networking opportunities EMVA events such as the annual Business Conference and European Machine Vision Forum provide. Recent initiatives to help share knowledge and expertise on increasingly important topics such as cybersecurity and patent trolling have been very well received by our members. Our members are also very active in standards development. As pointed out, this is an important topic in a fast-growing market where global standards simplify end-user adoption as well as creating a platform for further innovation.

The EMVA is working with Khronos on the Kamaros Embedded Camera API standard. What are the association’s goals here?

The EMVA cooperation with Khronos is an important development initiative for embedded vision. Several years ago, both the EMVA and Khronos saw the potential need for an open API standard to ease the development of embedded vision platforms. The EMVA established a cooperation with Khronos and formed a cross-industry exploratory group which worked for a year to clearly establish the need and scope for a new embedded camera API. The new Kameros standardization effort is now hosted by Khronos and is actively developing the first API specification towards its first release. EMVA member companies are able to join the associated advisory group at no cost, giving an opportunity to both understand and provide feedback to the development of the API, or can also join Khronos and directly participate in the working group. The EMVA is looking forward to supporting the next stages of development of the API. Kameros has the potential to open many opportunities for companies in the industry as well as ease the path for companies to address additional markets and develop new products. At the same time, companies will be able to use their own expertise to create products and solutions that provide value in specific applications or sectors.

What do you wish for the next 20 years and what are the future goals of the association?

The vision market continues to grow, supported by increasing demand for vision tech. The EMVA will continue to take forward the original mission to create a pan-European association which exists to promote the benefits of vision tech and increase the global competitiveness of its members. However, as the industry expands and evolves, the EMVA must also reflect the ongoing needs of our members.

With a changing geopolitical and global market landscape, it is more important than ever that the EMVA provides a strong voice for the vision industry in Europe, reflecting the views of our members, while also continuing to cooperate with other industry associations across the globe.

With many new companies entering the vision sector, and as our membership grows, the EMVA will continue to offer a central forum in Europe for networking. We aim to create the space to foster new partnerships and collaborations with the same sense of community which has defined the association since its inception.

Our membership represents many highly innovative and successful companies in the vision industry with tremendous expertise and knowledge. The EMVA must also place a larger emphasis on connecting this capability with new opportunities in important vertical markets such as logistics, agriculture, med-tech, and others.

Effective standards will remain highly relevant. The EMVA is committed to ensuring that machine vision standards are consistent and globally adopted for the benefit of all companies in the market. This is only made possible through the ongoing commitment and support of our standards working groups and the companies which provide their expertise and knowledge.

We can look forward to an exciting period in the industry as the market grows and vision tech becomes ever more ubiquitous. The EMVA is excited to support our members for the next twenty years and beyond, as the leading European association for networking, promotion, and standardization in the vision sector. And in the near term I look forward to celebrate EMVA’s 20th anniversary together with many industry players during the 21st EMVA Business Conference from May 4 to 6 in Seville.

EMVA European Machine Vision Association

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