The kick-off of Horizon Europe project Hephaestus at the end of May was set in the beautiful city of Venice, at the Ca'Foscari University. Hephaestus is one of the other 2 projects that was granted under the same Horizon Cluster 2 call as Tracks4Crafts. The European Commission therefore stimulates the exchange of ideas, expertise and data between the sibling projects. Julie De Groot (projectmanager of T4C) represented the consortium. On day 1 of the meeting, she presented the structure of the project - on day 2, she had the honour to conclude the symposium with some concluding remarks, underligning the added value of joining forces and disciplines. It immediately became clear that this event is just the beginning of an exciting collaboration.