Tech Gift Trains Next Innovators

Thanks to an innovative collaboration with Siemens Digital Industries Software Academic Program, University at Buffalo students are the beneficiaries of software tools for computer-aided design, simulation, manufacturing planning, robotics, product lifecycle management and more.

The company also lent expertise to help shape corresponding curriculum to best prepare students for high-demand roles in the industrial sector.

Through this public-private workforce development collaboration, students from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will emerge with an in-depth, working knowledge of the latest software tools, preparing them for highly skilled positions that companies in Western New York, New York State and beyond are looking to fill.

Del Costy, managing director, Americas for Siemens Digital Industries Software and president of Digital Industries in the U.S., added, “We are seeing a true shift across the manufacturing sector where companies are embracing digital tools to scale, innovate and compete on a global stage. But these tools are only as powerful as the people behind them, so it continues to be our mission to best prepare the next generation of individuals who will propel manufacturing even further into the future.”

One of the software tools, called Caliber, is used to design, test and verify circuits before schematics are sent to a manufacturer. Electrical engineering professor Bibhudatta Sahoo has used this product professionally since 2006. At UB, he trains engineering students how to use the software for analog and mixed-signal circuit design and says that because this software is used by the majority of the engineering world, companies specifically look for candidates with experience in it.

Electrical engineering student Sanchari Das uses the Caliber software in class, and saw it used extensively by the company she interned with last summer. 

“I use it to make sure what I’m designing meets a manufacturer’s specifications before it’s sent out,” she says. “It helps to actually use it in our own work, because this is the tool that’s being used across the industry.”