Autodesk
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Wednesday marked the start of this year's DevCon, after the warm-up day on Tuesday. Things started with a breakfast in the Expo Hall. (These pictures are actually from later in the day, when I happened to be upstairs by the balcony.) Autodeskers were asked to attend the keynotes in the overflow room. The main takeaways for me from the Day 1 keynote were around the imminent public availability of official MCP servers for some of our products, as well as the fact that Autodesk Assistant will be able to call MCP servers that partners have certified in our Design &…
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On Monday evening I started my journey across to Amsterdam for this year's Autodesk DevCon. In this post I'm going to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about this journey, mainly because it was a little different. I took a couple of very standard Swiss trains to get across to Basel. My main hack when it comes to Swiss trains is to camp out in the restaurant car: these are typically very comfortable and give you a feeling of luxury for the price of a second class ticket. Not that I have to travel second class, but I only…
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This week I've finally accepted the winter is over… here's a snap from yesterday, my last day on the slopes for this season. It's now time to think about spring, and where better to do that than Amsterdam? Alright, there's no need to mention say Paris or Osaka… spring is lovely in lots of places, but I happen to be going to Amsterdam. So there. Next week it's once again the Autodesk DevCon at the excellent and iconic Beurs Van Berlage conference venue, a short walk from Amsterdam Centraal station. In fact I'll be walking across from there on Tuesday…
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Autodesk University 2026 will be held in-person in Las Vegas - and online around the world - from September 15-17. The Call for Proposals for AU 2026 is open until April 7. You can find more information - including an FAQ and a handy worksheet for planning your proposal - on this page. Here are the class types available for this year's event. The first two are also available as part of the digital experience. Technical Deep Dive (30 or 60 minutes) Strategy Talk (30 or 60 minutes) Hands-on Lab (90 minutes) The above-linked FAQ includes information on how best…
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I'm starting to get quite excited about Autodesk DevCon 2026 in Amsterdam. Just getting there is going to be an experience: I'm taking the NightJet service - a sleeper train - from Basel to Amsterdam, arriving the morning of the pre-conference day, during which I'll be hanging out at the Dynamo Hackathon. I've taken night trains in the past - several times in India and once from London to Edinburgh - but this will be my first time taking one in mainland Europe. I do hope I arrive rested. 🙂 Anyway, the Dynamo Hackathon is going to be a really…
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There was a lot of excitement, last week, when Autodesk announced a $200 million investment in Dr. Fei-Fei Li's World Labs startup. Just to get this out there from the get-go: I have no special information about this investment - I heard about it at the same time as anyone outside the company, and was in no way involved in negotiations or discussions relating to it. I just thought it helpful to gather together a few references to public information that might be of interest (and of use) to people. The first reference I found worth a read is this article…
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My team's research focus is on "simulating the human experience of design" (with respect to the designed space or object, rather than the process of designing). We call this "Enlivened Design", which is intended to indicate our interest in simulating and predicting how design can support human flourishing and well-being. The Enlivened Design team is delighted to welcome our first Visiting Scholar to Autodesk Research. Dr Fiona Zisch, with whom we've been collaborating for quite some time, between the 100 Minds in Motion project and our Encoding Experience events, has joined the Enlivened Design team for a period of several…
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Registration for DevCon 2026 is now officially open. The event will be held from April 15th-16th 2026 in the historic Beurs van Berlage conference centre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. There's an additional pre-conference day on the 14th, so make sure to plan on attending that, too. Register today to save your spot and take advantage of early-bird pricing until February 20th! I said some time ago that I wasn't planning on presenting at this year's DevCon, but, well, I changed my mind and submitted a talk just before the deadline. I'm happy to say it was accepted. I'll be presenting…
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Yesterday I felt well enough to get myself out of bed before the sunrise to head across to Basel for this year's Swissbau, a biennial construction conference for the Swiss market. It was easier than in past years, as there's now a direct train from Neuchatel to Basel. (We used to have to change in Biel/Bienne). The journey was spectacular: as we skirted the Jura mountains, we went from dark and foggy to sunny and frosty (even snowy, in places). Arriving at the main station in Basel I had a few minutes to catch the tram out to the Messeplatz.…
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There's a public Call for Proposals now open - and will stay open for much of the month of December, closing on the 28th - for people to speak at DevCon 2026 in Amsterdam from April 15th-16th, 2026. I actually don't think I'll be submitting anything for this year's event - somewhat frustratingly I don't feel I've been working on anything that makes sense to present there - but I'm very much hoping to come along to attend sessions and meet with members of the developer community. If you're motivated to speak at DevCon, be sure to check out the…