What is the COE Academia Program?
by Bill Abramson

It is not always clear what is the purpose of COE's Academia Program. Let's share some thoughts. Dassault technology has played a key and strategic role in the infrastructure of many of our major learning institutions across the world… not just the United States. It has enabled students pursuing interests in scientific endeavors to have access to real world tools… the same tools being used by the enterprises that will be hiring these students upon graduation. The learning institutions have 'jumped all over this opportunity", in that they have applied their skills in the fields of technology and education to significantly enhance teaching methods and curriculum development. And they have shared the results of their expertise with IBM, DS and the key business partners supporting our DS requirements. Keeping our community well informed is part of COE's responsibility to its community and we have, through our infrastructure (e.g. conferences, newsletters and Web site) provided very effective vehicles for sharing this knowledge with you.

It is also clear that these 'CATIA schools' provide an enormous potential for synergy with industry as result of the compatibility of their IT infrastructures. Many enterprises have taken the opportunity to collaborate with these learning institutions to successfully and effectively (in terms of time and money) address technically complex projects. COE has shared these experiences with our community through conference presentations and newsletter articles. It has helped keep you informed of the frontiers of technology.

The importance of this effort is very clear… judging from the very significant investments in time, financial resources and technical resources that have been invested by IBM (see their HEAT program headed by Buz Nowicki and Dassault Systemes, as well as COE's support.

If you really want to think 'out of the box', I recommend that you actively participate in COE's academia program.

For further information about the "HEAT Program", contact information is listed below:
Q. W. (Buz) Nowicki
CATIA Higher Education an Training (HEAT) Program Manager
Product Lifecycle Management Solutions
18000 West Nine Mile Road
Southfield, MI 48075
(248) 552-5981 IBM Tie Line 896-5981 Fax (248) 552-6886
e-mail qnowicki@us.ibm.com