Forge at Autodesk University 2020 Recap

What a week!  Autodesk University 2020 took place last week from Tuesday, November 17^th through Friday, November 20^th.  For the first time ever, AU was one global digital event and there was no cost to attend. The conference theme was Reimagine Possible. Forge brought this to life by showing how Forge can help you harness new ways of making that bring the opportunities of Convergence to life. 

We kicked off AU with a couple of Forge pre-events that included: 

• Online Bootcamp: online self-training led by the Forge Developer Advocacy Team from October 19^th – 23^rd. 
• Hackathon: competitors joined to code a Forge project that would ultimately be up for prizes in 5 different categories. This was hosted from November 9^th – 13^th. 

AU started with a live broadcast that included a General Session and multiple Keynotes. The Forge Keynote premiered at 12pm PST on 11/17. Our keynote was led by Greg Fallon, VP of Platform and Technology Strategy and Susanna Holt, VP of the Forge Platform. They were joined by three customer speakers: Hal Hinkle, CEO of BamCore, Mayra Soto, Head of Product for HoloBuilder, and Kazuhiro Hatano, Managing Director at Toshiba Elevators. If you missed the live broadcast, the keynote is available on-demand. 

In addition to our keynote, Forge had quite a presence at AU. Much of our content lived on-demand on our Forge Industry Destination page – a place to view all of the industry, platform, and ecosystem updates from Forge. Here is a look at the on-demand content we produced:

• 4 Forge for Industry Programs that showcased how Forge can be applied to the world of Construction, Manufacturing, Building Design, and Civil Infrastructure. What's the process or workflow that's jamming up your business? Forge is here to help you Reimagine Possible, to change the question from "what is" to "what if" and embrace the new digital ways of making.
  • Forge for Construction with Ron Locklin and Allison Scott featuring customers BamCore, HoloBuilder, and AECOM. 
    • Remote working, cloud collaboration, and ever-increasing ways to improve safety are all hallmarks of the “connected construction” revolution taking place in your industry. We show you how Forge is helping businesses not just adapt to these shifts but make giant leaps forward. We’re seeing customers use the Forge platform to solve industry challenges that have been as hard to topple as the buildings you build.
  • Forge for Building Design with Greg Fallon and Vikram Dutt, featuring customers BamCore, AECOM, and GTP & DSI.
    • The digital transformation for architects and engineers has gone into hyperdrive since the pandemic, and Forge provides many of the tools that can help you take advantage of the shift. We show you what’s possible when you embrace Forge and create entirely new ways of designing. 
  • Forge for Manufacturing with Brian Roepke and Srinath Jonnalagadda featuring customers Moicon, American Air Filters, and Toshiba Elevators.
    • The manufacturing world is getting more connected, smarter, and more efficient. From creating digital twins that offer real-time insights into factory performance to connecting workflows and processes that were once fragmented, Forge’s cloud platform is enabling many of the new ways of making. 
  • Forge for Civil Infrastructure with Jim Quanci and Theo Agelopoulos featuring customers Norconsult and Black & Veatch. 
    • The Infrastructure industry’s digital transformation is helping to solve long-standing inefficiencies and problems, and here is where Forge comes in. Forge’s cloud platform enables entirely new ways of getting your megaprojects from design to completion, check out how.
• Additional Forge Programs 
  • Forge Fire Face Off: Greg Fallon was put in the hot seat where he had to eat 10 spicy sauces while answering 10 even spicier questions. There were special appearances by Susanna Holt, Scott Borduin, and Scott Reese. 
  • Hackathon Showcase: a recap of last week’s Hackathon projects and the announcement of the winners. 
  • Forge at AU Rewind: to close out AU, we shared a highlight reel of the best Forge at AU happenings. 

But the Forge fun did not stop there! We also had the following:

• Forge Classes 
  • 72 total classes, panels, activities, and hands-on labs 
• Forge Lightning Talks: short talks that showcased popular solutions you can build using the Forge Platform
  • 43 total talks in 5 different languages 
• 64 Exhibitors with the “Powered by Forge” badge  
• Forge Answer Bar 
  • 11 Hosts and 44 Experts represented Forge from 15 countries 
  • Provided 35 hours of online assistance 
• AU Arcade: we created 2 Forge themed games, Forge Man (reimagined Pac Man) and Connect Forge (reimagined Connect Four). 

If you missed any of these awesome events, don't worry you can still watch it all! Autodesk University aims to be a continuous learning experience, so all of the on-demand content and classes will be available year-round. Any live content (such as panels, roundtables, and live Q&A's) will be available until December 20th for you to enjoy. 

Thank you for all of your support in making Forge at AU 2020 a success!