Altair announced that the 8th European Altair Technology Conference (ATC), which took place from September 29th - October 1st, 2015 at the "Cité de la Musique", in Paris, France brought together 650 engineers and simulation experts to discuss trends and news on simulation and development topics. With more than 100 presentations, an extensive exhibition and dedicated product updates on Altair, its products, and partners, the conference offered a perfect platform to network, learn and share experience.
Kicking off with several workshops, a symposium on system simulation and Altair's European Academic Day, the conference was off to a good start for engineers from all industries, who are interested in learning more about innovative product development, using cloud offerings for engineering applications, design, simulation, optimization, and high performance computing.
Day two staged Altair's CEO James Scapa, who announced the acquisition of Click2Cast, a Spain based casting simulation provider, and talked about Altair's strategic business plans for the next year. His talk was followed by presentations on Altair’s vision in design, simulation and HPC, given by Dr. Uwe Schramm and James Dagg, both CTOs at Altair. The remaining morning and part of the afternoon was dedicated to high level customer presentations from Jaguar Land Rover, Hyundai, Alstom, Rolo Bikes, CEVT, Airbus Helicopters, Arup and Thyssen Krupp Elevators, as well as HP and Intel as platinum sponsors of the event. The keynote presenters highlighted the importance of implementing simulation tools and methods as well optimization for the development of truly innovative products.
In the later afternoon of September 30th, the conference program split up into 5 parallel sessions, presented as symposiums, including introductory presentations by Altair, customer presentations and time for group discussions with the entire audience. The structure of these symposiums was very well received since they addressed cross industry topics such as additive manufacturing, lead time reduction and high frequency electromagnetics, as well as industry specific subjects for branches such as the railway and automotive industry. The day's conference program concluded with a demonstration session of the upcoming new HyperWorks version 14.0, to be released in the coming months, followed by a networking event.
Day three saw additional keynote presentations, by Altair and its customers, such as Ford, STELIA Aerospace, Plastic Omnium, PSA Peugeot Citroën, RUAG Space, Renault Nissan, and Volvo Car as well as by Amazon Web Services (AWS), a gold sponsor of the event, talking about opportunities for CAE applications in the cloud. The afternoon was dedicated to break out sessions again; covering topics such as aerospace, composites, architecture, NVH, CFD, durability, powertrain simulation, and multiphysics.
"We have enjoyed our participation at the European ATC in Paris, both as an exhibitor and presenter, very much," said Karine Thoral Pierre, CEO at CEDREM. "The European ATC is a very good platform for us to meet fellow simulation experts, customers and prospects; to share ideas and to discuss problems, solutions and trends in various industries. We found the audience of the conference very interested in our solutions and to be very skilled in their fields of expertise. Hence we are looking forward to also participate in future Altair Technology events."
Over the last years, the event has grown from a traditional user conference to a cross-topic and industry technology conference. Attendees rated the technical content and quality of this year's presentations very high and more than 96 percent of the attendees would recommend the event to their colleagues.
“I'm very happy with the outcome of the conference,” said Dr. Detlef Schneider, Senior Vice President EMEA, Altair. “The feedback I received from partners and attendees alike was very positive and I was very pleased with the content our presenters from Altair, partners and customers offered to our audience. The technology showcase was also well received. It was great to see what our partners offer and the innovative products, including the largest 3D printed product for space applications by RUAG Space, a 3D printed aeronautic structure from Sogeclair, a composites bike from Rolo Bikes, and many more, which were also exposed in the exhibition area were outstanding.”
The conference’s platinum sponsors were HP and Intel, other ATC exhibitors and sponsors include HBM nCode, Amazon Web Services, AlphaStar , Airbus Defence&Space, AVL, CAEfatigue, CEDREM, Componeering, Cray, FEMFAT, FluiDyna, FLUIDON, GeonX, Granta Design, Loge, Matelys, Materialise, MapleSoft, MRFC, NAFEMS, NovaCast, Part Engineering, PowersSys, PDTec, Sandbox, Sidact, Software Cradle, and Thermo Analytics.
