3D Printing Spotlight On: Ilaria Guicciardini, Marketing Director, Roboze

Roboze is a manufacturer of boundary-breaking 3D printers, founded and headquartered in Italy, but also with offices in New York. Their Marketing Director, Ilaria Guicciardini, has a strong dedication to both 3D printing and marketing—and these interests have taken her on an unprecedented journey into a world of new technology and industry that few are actually able to experience.

Recently, Ilaria took some time out to speak with us about her background and work in the industry of 3D printing as we continue to highlight the work of women in technology.

What is your title at Roboze and how long have you been with the company? When was Roboze founded?

“I’m Roboze Marketing Director. When I started this adventure, Roboze wasn’t already involved in the market. The company was founded in 2013 but moved its first steps in this field at the beginning of 2015. In 2014, after several years of experience and research abroad, I was looking for strong professional encouragement. My core business, until that moment, was music, first as a singer and then as a founder of an independent music label. I had to pause that for personal reasons though.

I was born and grew up in Bari, in the South of Italy. The area is rich in brilliant young minds but offers big obstacles for enterprises too, in terms of politics and administration. I had the great chance to meet Alessio Lorusso, CEO and founder of Roboze, who, at that time, with only a machine sample in his hands and a lot of passion in his heart, was looking for a professional figure, with experience in the magical world of marketing. It was then that our story began.”

Roboze Founder and CEO Alessio Lorusso (R) with Gil Lavi, VP Global Sales & Business Development, at RAPID + TCT 2017 [Photo: Sarah Goehrke]

“Until I met Alessio Lorusso, I had just heard about what a 3D printer was. In that period, I didn’t appreciate the advantages and purposes of this technology. When I had the possibility to understand this field better, a new world opened up.

3D printing advantages are well-known today: you have the chance to produce complex shapes, to speed up a product lead time, to customize every single detail—but what I actually saw in 3D printing was the only solution to today’s change in level of consumer demand.

My experience essentially derives from services. The digitalization has simplified the connection between society and single end consumer, personalizing its own messages and sending them exactly to the selected addressee. But what happens in the case of production? The only possible answer is 3D printing.”

What do you think is the most important thing 3D printing offers the world overall?

“I’m very bound to concepts like ‘reason’ or ‘enlightenment.’ I totally trust in what people can do for themselves and for the whole world. If we disconnect business from innovation, considering it the desire to find solutions able to improve our lives from a practical, environmental and civil perspective, man represents the instrument created by nature to positively develop its own essence. Millions of people need innovation and want to explore new worlds in the easiest way possible. 3D printing offers exactly that, giving space to creativity and progress in general.”

The Roboze One 3D printer [Image: Roboze]

“Roboze is a company founded by brave young people. And by brave, I really mean it. The approach of our group is to challenge the logics of design and to find the right solution to the most complex problems that technology handles every day. We made it since the very beginning with the Beltless System. This system is deeply favored by its own simplicity. Basing our technology on FFF 3D printing technology, we immediately focused on the very low quality of the printed parts and most of all on the inability to print repeatable parts by using belts in the extrusion body. We replaced them with a system made of helical racks and pinion, assuring real and calculated work tolerances. Today we offer 25 micron mechanical tolerances, never seen on a FFF 3D printing system.

The following focus is on materials of course. For almost a year we have launched materials like PEEK or Ultem 9085, produced with FFF technology for SMEs too. In the past, only few companies could use them, due to their high costs. It’s just the beginning for us and we really want to overcome all this and to offer more and more powerful and high-performing solutions, accessible to worldwide SMEs.”

What is your main involvement at Roboze on a daily basis?

“I plan and manage all the marketing activities: market strategies, digital marketing, creation of content, press office duties, and exhibitions. I never get bored. What I love the most are public relations. I love talking with clients and stakeholders, which constitute an unlimited resource to create real values for the market.”

Ilaria at formnext 2016 [Photo: Sarah Goehrke]

“When people talk about manufacturing, many immediately visualize someone working very hard for many hours, with huge and risky physical efforts. Princesses can’t get their hands dirty, and most of the time, this field is connected to male figures. It’s like when people talk about motors, or shuttles, or hanging a nail: it’s men’s stuff!

The 3D printing world differs from this primitive vision. There is a basic respect among all the societies, according to my opinion connected also to the pioneering spirit of the actors of this ‘new’ field. I have met a lot of women in managerial positions: I have a good relationship with them, and we often like to exchange opinions and ideas. Of course, there could be more of them. I can’t deny that in conversations with my male colleagues, I often first have to challenge several psychological limits.

As the Canadian politician Charlotte Elizabeth Whitton said, ‘Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.'”

Do you have any advice for students and woman just getting involved with 3D design and 3D printing?

“3D design and 3D printing offer unlimited applications. The evolution of materials brings new uses of these instruments to market and it becomes harder and harder to understand and use them properly. I suggest specializing, to find a very interesting field and to become the best in that single field, which might be design, materials science, or technology.”

3D printing with PEEK at formnext 2016 [Photo: Sarah Goehrke]

“3D printing is a technology deriving from a recent past, but that is speeding up in a very impressive way during the recent years. The internet, the study and application of new materials—together with the diffusion of a new awareness and of a new way to consider work—society and production, are launching this technology towards a future that appears very attractive and promising today.

Will this be the end of common industries? It is too soon to say, but new technologies will surely totally change the relationship we share with them and with objects, which won’t be imposed by societies or distribution processes, but will be part of the elaborate process of reality, and of the consumers’ necessities and desires.”

Find out more about Roboze products and services here. Share your thoughts in the Ilaria Guicciardini forum at 3DPB.com.

If you are interested in sharing your story, or know a woman we should get in touch with for this new series, please reach out any time. Send us an email or connect on Twitter. We’re looking forward to sharing more stories about women in 3D printing. Find all the features in this series here.