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Rob Karsten

Rob Karsten

EMEA Director for Advanced Lighting Systems at Excelitas Technologies, with over two decades of experience in UV LED curing technology and industrial printing solutions.

Aug 13, 2026

59:02
The people like you that are developing and leading the technology, are skill shortages limiting future industry growth?
59:09
Yeah.
59:10
Um, skills shortages, I guess are, I mean, it's kind of absurd, isn't it? At one level, we're talking about over a million young people being needs, not in education, employment or training.
59:25
And, and then on the other hand, we're looking at a print industry and we've got a shortage of skilled people, um, You know, the opportunities need to be brought to the people and they need to be able to be done in a way that is attractive for employers to do this, right? But there should be some commitment then that the people who've done the training, you know, stay in the business because of what's the incentive for the employer to do it otherwise.
59:53
It's a complicated issue, but I think the...
60:00
It's as much a kind of a policy decision as it's also how we present it out to the industry, right? So the biggest shortage is people who understand several parts of the process.
60:17
Industrial printing obviously requires knowledge of inkjet, chemistry, UV curing, thermal processing, materials automation, manufacturing generics.

6 MINS LATER

66:50
I guess we'll become very mainstream by then, direct printing in a variety of industries.

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