The opening session of this edition was attended by the President of the Fibrenamics Institute, Raul Fangueiro, the Councillor of Braga City Council, Altino Bessa, the President of the Northern Portugal Regional Coordination and Development Commission, António M. Cunha, and the President of the School of Engineering at the University of Minho, Pedro Arezes.

For three days, the event brought together experts from various universities, researchers, technological centers, and companies who discussed the latest scientific and technical innovations in advanced materials for Defense in 95 parallel sessions.

This year's conference had strong institutional and industrial participation, highlighting the presence of internationally renowned speakers such as Raúl Guichón from Embraer Portugal, Thomas Koerwien from Airbus Defence and Space, and José Luís Mingote from NATO.

The event also featured a presentation by the Executive Director of Fibrenamics, Fernando Cunha, who explained the Institute's knowledge transfer model and discussed examples of applications for the Defense sector. Additionally, at the conference, Fibrenamics addressed trends and future opportunities for innovation in collaboration with ANI, Deloitte, AED Cluster Portugal, and HEROES, University of Massachusetts.

Finally, the AuxDefense 2024 Conference closed with the award of the Best Poster Award to Đạt Trương, Raul Fangueiro, Fernando Ferreira and Quyền Nguyễn from the University of Minho, Portugal, and the AuxDefense Innovation Award to Seonyoung Seon Youn and Prateeti U., from North Carolina State University, USA.

From the inspiring presentations to the networking moments, every moment contributed to three days of learning, collaboration and fascinating discoveries. The Fibrenamics Institute would like to thank all the speakers, participants and partners for making this event memorable and contributing to significant progress in the field.

The next edition of the AuxDefense Conference is scheduled for 2026 and will be held in Madeira.