MetaSystems Distributor Meeting 2022
It was a great pleasure to meet our distributors from around the world for the 20th time. At this year's MetaSystems Distributor Meeting, held November 8-9, we brought together our sales partners and MetaSystems staff to share news about our applications and products, provide insights, and exchange experiences. Over the past decades, many loyal sales partners have even become friends, and we are proud to have built a supportive, trusting and successful community. As a result, we are pleased to call our global community the MetaSystems Family. And this year, we also welcomed new partners to our strong network. Since our founding in 1986, our network of sales partners has grown to more than 100 distributors around the world.
In 2002, we held our first Distributor Meeting in Speyer, Palatinate, Germany. In an interactive environment, we shared knowledge, best practices and useful insights. This face-to-face experience with our partners was so fruitful that we have held a Distributor Meeting every year since. With the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, we switched to an online format. As in the last two years, we met online again because travel is still difficult in some regions, and we wanted to include all our global partners. We are hopeful that the situation will improve in the coming years, and we can return to the face-to-face gatherings that made the MetaSystems Distributor Meeting famous.
The use of artificial intelligence has been the defining theme of the past year and will be the driving force for our future developments. Central to our recent advances is the intelligent karyotyping in Ikaros, which is helping to significantly reduce turnaround times. In cytogenetics, we also showcased recent advances with Rapid Score, the interactive FISH spot counting module, and the new DNA FISH probes from our sister company MetaSystems Probes. Integrated case and image data management helps our users streamline the entire microscopy workflow. Automating the detection of spermatozoa in forensic samples has gained attention thanks to the implementation of sophisticated deep learning algorithms. We presented the current standard for hardware add-ons that can be used in combination with our Ikaros and Metafer software. As a special highlight, we opened the MetaSystems Academy, an online self-learning platform, for our sales partners.
We sincerely thank all speakers and organizers for their time and commitment. And a special thank you to our loyal and helpful sales partners for their outstanding work and continuous support over the years. Hopefully we will see our distributors in person again soon.