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Designers creating positive change now have access to latest and greatest from Autodesk
Autodesk has long been committed to helping customers use design to create positive change. The customers who are designing and making solutions to today’s social and environmental challenges like climate change, healthcare, and poverty alleviation need access to the latest and greatest technology from Autodesk. We’re excited to announce that Industry Collections are now available to entrepreneurs and nonprofit innovators around the world. Let’s take a look at some of the Autodesk programs that support these customers and the, well, impact they’ve had to date.
Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais/University Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti, completed in 2013 by Build Health International for Partners in Health (Credit: Rebecca E. Rollins/Partners In Health)
The Technology Impact Program donates software to any nonprofit anywhere in the world that is using design for environmental or social good. Founded in 2013, we have now donated software to more than 1200 organizations, including Habitat for Humanity which brings people together to build homes, communities and hope; UNHCR – the UN Refugee Agency – which helps and protects refugees and people displaced by violence, conflict and persecution; and Build Health International which designs and builds high-quality health-care facilities in under-served and impoverished regions of the world.
A family in India gathers around a BioLite Home Stove (credit: BioLite)
The Entrepreneur Impact Program is a similar program targeting entrepreneurs and early stage start-up companies who are creating positive impact. Entrepreneurs accepted into the program receive software, training, expertise, and networking opportunities geared to help them develop their idea and get to market faster. Started as the Cleantech Partner Program in 2009 focused on clean technology start-ups, the program expanded in 2015 to reach beyond clean tech to include any entrepreneur pursuing impact across environmental and social sectors. Customers are working on solutions to address energy efficiency, mobility, health and wellbeing, materials innovation and more. The program is now global, accepting applications from around the world.
We have now reached more than 3,000 startups around the world, including companies like FreeWire which has built an EV charger using 2nd life EV batteries; BioLite which is a social enterprise that develops, manufactures, and markets consumer energy products for off grid communities around the world; Little Sparrows Technologies, which makes a low-cost portable phototherapy unit designed to cure jaundice for those who don’t have regular access to electricity; and Vantage Power, which makes a self-contained hybrid powertrain to retrofit existing diesel buses, cutting fuel consumption and emissions more than 40 percent.
Ilima Primary School (credit: MASS Design Group)
The Autodesk Foundation complements these programs and is focused on investing in people and organizations using design for impact. The Autodesk Foundation is the first foundation focused exclusively on design. Launched in 2013, the Foundation has a portfolio of 35 grantee customers from around the world.
Autodesk Foundation grantees include D-Rev, a nonprofit product development company that identifies, designs, and delivers high-impact products that benefit people living on less than $4 per day; MASS Design Group, which designs and makes infrastructure and buildings for underserved communities around the world; and Water for People, a non-profit striving to bring safe, sustainable drinking water and sanitation to every human being.
These customers are making the world a better place by solving some of the most significant social and environmental challenges we all face. They now have access to industry collections to leverage the most essential Autodesk software and services by industry.
Every day we are inspired by positive impact these customers and partners are having and are pleased and humbled to support them and new customers with our most powerful software and services. Together we can imagine, design, and create a better world.
