Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company has announced at SOLIDWORKS World 2017 that it is extending its 3DEXPERIENCE Lab open innovation laboratory and startup accelerator to North America. This represents the next step in the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab’s growing global presence to nurture entrepreneurial projects that have the potential to transform society.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Lab in North America will open in May 2017 at Dassault Systèmes’ U.S. headquarters near Boston. Startups, entrepreneurs, students, makers, and individuals from industrial innovation departments or research laboratories based anywhere in North America, whose projects address city, life, lifestyle, the internet of things, Fab Labs or ideation themes, will have access to Dassault Systèmes’ cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform, technical skills, mentoring and worldwide ecosystem, as part of one- or two-year programs to accelerate their product development.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Lab will also house a new digital fabrication space designed and set up in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Bits and Atoms. In this Fab Lab, innovators can use state-of-the art computer-controlled tools and processes to create product prototypes or refine their product ideas.
This Fab Lab will also serve as a laboratory for future hardware-software interfaces. It will be integrating design and fabrication tools into end-to-end real-time systems.
“North America has been a wellspring for some of the most impactful startup and entrepreneurial technological innovations of our time. By expanding the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab to North America, we hope to continue this tradition of invention by offering entrepreneurs, makers and startups unique resources to work on disruptive innovations, leverage collective intelligence and create an impact on society,” said Bruno Latchague, Senior Executive Vice President, Global Field Operations (Americas), Dassault Systèmes. “SOLIDWORKS World 2017, whose community embodies the spirit of innovation, is the ideal venue for sharing the launch of this exciting new endeavor as it also complements our ‘SOLIDWORKS for Entrepreneurs program.’ It offers mentoring and greater access to the entire scope of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for startups using SOLIDWORKS applications to digitally create smart products.”
First launched in Europe in November 2015, the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab shapes a new framework of open innovation to foster entrepreneurship and strengthen society’s future of creation. It enables innovators to optimize and validate products and processes using the same virtual collaborative applications and expertise that have transformed how today’s products are designed, manufactured and supported.
It has since yielded successful projects in multiple industries that advance a collective effort to harmonize product, nature and life. These include large-scale additive construction using robots, 3D printing of personalized organs for simulation of surgery, open source drones having capabilities of both a helicopter and an airplane, and upstream innovation by sketching in immersive virtual reality.
