2016 Highlights: Altair’s Year in Review

By: Biba A. Bedi

It was inarguably the year of Converge. The solidThinking global conference series began in Los Angeles,

CA and swept across Europe and Asia introducing the symbiosis of design and technology through

spectacular presentations, world-class creativity, and impassioned talks. Forward thinking product and

experience creators converged, brilliantly fusing the world of design and technology with topics ranging

from the future of transportation, Biomimicry, 3D printing in Hollywood, architectural design innovative

buildings, design in space, consumer products and so on. Glowing coverage and descriptions poured in.

Here is a sampling from LA, California, by attendee Andy Silber, Essen Germany, publication Autocar

Professional in India, and Altair team interview televised via Naver in Korea

It was also a busy year for other events. We hosted over 30 ATCx events globally. From Supercomputing

in the US, Hannover Messe in Europe, GALM in Asia and SAE in Brazil we supported 250 industry events

worldwide. Moreover, we conducted well over a 100 webinars.

Apart from Converge, solidThinking was busy growing in other ways as well! New feature packed Inspire

2016 with PolyNURBS toolset was released early in the year followed by Inspire and Evolve 2017 recently!

The release of Compose®, Activate®, Embed® was announced, Click2Cast® 4.0 and Click2Extrude® 2017

were launched, Inspire Unlimited℠ was announced and Solid Iris Technologies adding photorealistic

rendering and visualization capabilities was acquired. A key milestone was the release of Envision®, a

modern, cloud-based business intelligence platform.

The HyperWorks® team rolled out a major product release

with HyperWorks 14.0 which included several new products,

feature enhancements, updated functionalities and

licensing methods.

Expanding the HyperWorks portfolio by 10 new products,

the Altair Partner Alliance added 5 new partners and

enabled 150 new customer sites.

Altair started reaching new generations of engineering

students at a whole new level. Michigan Tech became one

of the first engineering schools in the nation to fully

incorporate Altair’s technology into its entire mechanical

engineering curriculum. Dalhousie University (Dal) in

Canada incorporated HyperWorks into its Mechanical Engineering program at the University this year.

Altair’s strategic acquisitions of AWE Communications GmbH with its WinProp™ wave propagation and

radio network planning software and CEDRAT with its Flux technology with domain expertise to support

IoT, added to its previous acquisition of high-frequency technology FEKO placed Altair on an accelerated

path in the EM space.

Altair added two impressive new Board Members this year. Trace Harris is a finance, strategy and business

development executive and Oren Michels is an entrepreneur, investor, board member and advisor to

technology startups in the US and Europe.

A significant year for PBS Professional®! Altair made a milestone shift to move the HPC community closer

to achieve exascale computing with its announcement to provide open source licensing option for its high

performance workload manager PBS Pro. PBS was also selected as workload manager for the National

Center for Atmospheric Research Center (NCAR)’s new Supercomputing System. Additionally, they have

expanded their availability via several strategic collaborative channels including Intel, HPE as well as their

upcoming release of Altair PBS Cloud™ .

The Altair ProductDesign Team enjoyed its fourth successful year with

the Enlighten Award. The winners this year were GM for the 2016

Cadillac CT6 (OEM focused Full-Vehicle category) and ContiTech for the

2016 Mercedes S-Class (Module category).

Altair’s global footprint continued to grow.

Altair expanded its presence around the globe, signing on several new

HyperWorks re-sellers including partners in Hungary and Slovakia.

Altair COO Brett Chouinard provided his insights on the growth of product

innovation in ASEAN, Malaysia, during an interview with Bloomberg TV (insert

link to Brett video).

At the heart of the Malaysia Automotive Institute (MAI)’s automotive technology centre, MAI Intelligent

Technology Systems (MITS) launched this year, is the HyperWorks Unlimited Physical Appliance (HWUL-

PA), a 96-core private cloud server that provides users unlimited plug-and-play access to all of Altair’s

HyperWorks computer-aided design (CAD) and engineering (CAE) software, as well as high-performance

computing (HPC) tools for design, engineering and simulation purposes.

Altair also announced collaboration with the University of Philippines to promote the development of

next generation architects through the use of cutting edge simulation technologies in teaching, training

and design projects.

The Indian government enacted new regulation this year which acted as a great boost for EMC technology

growth in India. Rising Interest in Simulation Engineering and HPC Solutions Brought Record Growth to

Altair Engineering Sdn Bhd in South-East Asian Region.

We were part of so many cool projects! However, if I had to pick just a few I would have to go with these.

The APWorks Light Rider Motorbike – Airbus AP Works used topology optimization and a simulation-

driven design process using HyperWorks to create the world’s first ever 3D printed motorcycle.

Engineered. Bespoke. The R160 Mountain Bike by Robot Bike Co. is probably one of the most popular

stories of the year! A collaboration of cutting edge technologies led to the unveiling of the Robot Bike Co.

R160 mountain bike frame – designed and manufactured in the UK with partner companies Altair, HiETA

Technologies and Renishaw using metal additive manufacturing.

And of course the Square Kilometer Array project – a HyperWorks supported building of the world’s

largest telescope. The SKA is a radio telescope that will have a total collecting area of one square

kilometer; will improve our understanding of the Universe as well as monitor the sky in unprecedented

detail and speed.

For the fourth consecutive year, Altair received an Excellence in

the Workplace Award; Best and Brightest for Wellness. This year

Altair was honored to receive a prestigious Jaguar Land Rover

Supplier Excellence Award. This award for performance

excellence, was presented to Altair by Jaguar Land Rover CEO, Dr

Ralf Speth and TV presenter Jodie Kidd at an exclusive ceremony

held in the company’s heartland in the West Midlands. Another

award received this year is the HPCwire Reader’s Choice Award.

Altair won Best Application of HPC in Manufacturing in this

annual Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards for simulation work done with Stanley Black & Decker using

Altair’s HyperWorks Unlimited® Physical Appliance.

The United Shore Professional Baseball League (USPBL) homers

generated $10,000 for Utica Community Schools students thanks to

toggled®. Once again making it to the top 25, this year ilumisys® dba

toggled Ranked #8 on Crain's Detroit Business 2016 List of 25 Most

Innovative Companies in Michigan.

By now you have probably seen the Banana Story. Altair’s Magnus Lindvall was challenged by his wife

saying he could not crack open a banana in a particular way. Challenge accepted. He did just that. Funny

story. But guess what – it has gone on to become Altair’s BIGGEST story; going viral on Facebook with over

45,000 views!

Click here and find out for yourself (add link to banana story video).

This year Altair implemented “Altair Gives Back” – a generous program of community involvement in

several core categories of Culture & Arts, the STEM program, Healthcare and Human Services. The

program is highly supportive of and encourages voluntary services and charitable donations.

It was a busy summer!

Altair exhibited at this year’s Maker Faire Detroit, adding to the innovative spirit by showcasing several of

our solutions. There were several booths with interactive components. An activity packed weekend with

unconventional ingenuity, unbridled creativity and a whole lot of forward thinking!

<Add link to Maker Faire video>

We welcomed the littlest Altarians for “Take your Child to Work Day” – It was a fun-filled day with dancing,

activity stations, and pinewood derby.

<Add link to video – Take your child to Work day>

Speaking of the “littlest” Altarians” – Altair families grew! We had many babies born (with a couple on

the way) with 11 announcements sent out in 2016!

And now, from around the globe, sharing Altarians’ moments from throughout the year. As we conclude

another exciting, successful year, we wish you the very best of the coming New Year!