ABSTRACT
This chapter contains a brief perspective write-up from the editors of the book on the impact of additive manufacturing in today’s “flat-world”. The final chapter of this book looks at the future to see how additive manufacturing can influence our everyday life in the coming days. How on-demand manufacturing can influence new product development or community centric business development or educating our next generation of students and professionals with their innovative ideas. It is envisioned that the differences between the manufacturing nations and predominantly consumer nations will decrease in the future due to the use of additive manufacturing. In combination with Internet-based technologies and the advancements in computer aided design, additive manufacturing will make a flat world even more uniform for the generations to come.
