The Meeting of the Best: Mitutoyo at WorldSkills 2019

Some of the most important days in the still young life of the contestants: At the 45th WorldSkills in Kazan, Russia, the world's best young professionals once again met and fought tooth and nail during the five-day battle for the coveted medals. Naturally, Mitutoyo played a major role as a Global Partner.

Tears and triumphs, victories and defeats as well as tangible surprises: The competitions visibly bring many of the participants to their limits. It’s no wonder - the tasks at the WorldSkills are as demanding as the competition is hard. And these are among the most challenging and complicated trials in the young lives of the ambitious professionals.

Every two years, the WorldSkills brings together the “crème de la crème” of young talent from all over the world. The youngsters, who are no older than 22 - and in the case of three competitions up to 25 - years old, have qualified for WorldSkills 2019 on a national level. This year, from the 22nd to 27th of August, the world's best adolescents in these fields met in Kazan, the capital of the autonomous republic of Tatarstan, Russia. The event holds a high reputation and this time attracted no less than 270,000 visitors from all over the world.

A truly international verve blew through the EXPO halls of the 1.2 million inhabited metropolis: no fewer than 63 national teams took part in this year's qualifiers. Around 1,350 participants from six different groups made up of 56 professions competed in a fair competition to determine who would be champions. The spectrum ranges all over from social and personal services work as a nurse, creative occupations like cook, chocolatier or hairdresser as well as web and videogame design. Even service providing professions such as landscape gardeners, tilers and bricklayers or highly technical crafts like welding, mechatronics, and CNC turning/milling have their own competitions. This time, new professions and industries such as reverse engineering, cybersecurity and big data demonstrated their expertise and applicability under the banner of "future skills".

It goes without saying that the best in the world are only provided with the very best equipment. Functioning as a global partner of WorldSkills, Mitutoyo provides the competitors in over a third of the total competitions with calipers, micrometers, dial gauges, depth gauges, height gauges, granite plates, and many other tools. Mitutoyo also plays an extremely important role in evaluation as the measuring technology experts were responsible for inspecting the workpieces of six different competitions in the "Manufacturing and Engineering Technology" sector.

At their stand, Mitutoyo specialists presented the latest technology in length measurement and quality assurance. The Augmented Reality (AR) application was particularly popular with visitors, taking them on a journey through the world of measuring technology in aerospace, automotive and everyday practices. As a special luxury, the visitors were able to experience the measurement technology of the future very closely with two remarkably spectacular Virtual Reality (VR) headsets. Even untrained passers-by learned in no time at all how to measure professionally with hand-held measuring instruments in virtual space. With another VR attraction, visitors could literally immerse themselves in the world of coordinate measuring technology. The two interactive tables, at which information and videos on hand-held measuring devices and surface roughness testers can be used in 11 different languages, were heavily encircled.

"Mitutoyo attaches great importance to promoting young talents," says Mitutoyo coordinator Martin Weeks. After all, showing young people career opportunities is also one of the central goals of the WorldSkills movement. Another substantial topic Weeks discussed was that “with our products, we make a significant contribution to improving the quality of all goods produced. Depending on the industry, this can even save lives. In this way, we contribute to a better society.”

The enormous importance of WorldSkills was also demonstrated by the celebrities at the opening and closing ceremonies of the competition in the Kazan Arena. None other than the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev opened the event and at the closing ceremony, even President Vladimir Putin paid tribute.

Another very special honour was bestowed upon Mitutoyo: Martin Weeks and Alexander Litinski, head of the Russian Mitutoyo national representation, were able to award gold, silver and bronze medals to the euphoric youngsters at the award ceremony for certain competitions.

With the decision to aid this year’s WorldSkills in Kazan; Mitutoyo has once again shaped and moulded the largest and most renowned competition of its kind in the world. "We are extremely proud to support and promote young talent in this way," says Litinski.

The 46th edition of WorldSkills will take place in Shanghai/China in 2021.