Dassault In Academic Partnership

Dassault Systèmes (Nasdaq: DASTY), the French manufacturing technology provider with its United States headquarters in Auburn Hills, Wednesday announced an academic partnership with the Convergence Education Foundation, a coalition of automotive and electronics industrialists and educators.

Under the partnership, teams participating in the CEF’s 2008 Innovative Vehicle Design competition have access to Dassault’s products. The 12 participating high school teams have 20 seats of software, consisting of CATIA for digital product design, and DELMIA for definition of the manufacturing processes, inclusive of teacher and student training.

This second IVD competition has student teams from Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan designing and producing a fully-driveable, single person, electric-powered vehicle that must operate for 60 minutes on a closed course in early October 2008. Each team is charged with a slightly different project goal in order to better encourage innovation. To help with the project, schools work with sponsors and mentors from the auto industry. Awards are presented in numerous categories with all of the vehicles being showcased at the Convergence 2008 automotive technology show Oct. 20-22 at Cobo Center in Detroit. 

“There is really no car-building program utilizing Dassault Systèmes’s DELMIA and CATIA software at the high school level in the U.S.,” said Roy Smolky, worldwide sales operations services & support, DELMIA, Dassault Systèmes. “We are totally supportive of the CEF’s vision and efforts to get students involved in the excitement of vehicle design at this early stage of their education.  With every automotive OEM using Dassault Systèmes’ solutions, we are providing students with skill sets that give them a jump-start on pursuing an engineering degree or directly entering the workforce.”

Mr. Klimek added that the plan is to continue to grow the use of Dassault Systèmes solutions each year, with a goal of 20 teams participating in the automotive competition in 2009-2010.  The tools will be made available to other CEF project teams, including Mini-IVD Racing, based on the redesign of a one-eighth scale radio-controlled monster truck, and an Underwater-IVD. An aero IVD and Lunar Vehicle IVD design competition will be unveiled in the near future.

The DELMIA Academic Partner Program provides career awareness and preparation by offering educational institutions -- ranging from elementary schools to universities -- academic partnerships that include special licensing, purchase arrangements, and sharable resources. DELMIA currently has 70 North American academic partners, including institutions such as Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, Penn State, Purdue, Wayne State, Ohio Northern, Kettering University and the University of Alabama-Huntsville.

More at www.cef-trek.org or www.3ds.com.