Join: 2009 BE Awards Student Design Competition

Bentley Systems’ BE Careers Network today announced the opening of its 2009 BE Awards student design competition – an integral part of Bentley’s annual BE Awards of Excellence program honoring the extraordinary work of its users. University, technical college, and high school students are invited to submit projects they’ve designed using Bentley software, along with a short essay describing their work. The judging will focus on creativity and skill in applying design and engineering principles. The program welcomes both individual and team efforts, but teams cannot exceed three members. All submissions must be received by Feb. 20, 2009. Bentley will award a $1,000 scholarship to the winning individual or team in each of the five submission categories.

“As we continue to progress toward our goal of sustaining the world’s infrastructure, we must also sustain the architectural, engineering, construction (AEC), and geospatial professions charged with this critically important mission,” said Scott Lofgren, global director of BE Careers Network. “It is well known that the world faces an increasing shortfall in the number of trained architects and engineers available to surmount the growing backlog of infrastructure work. By bringing software-supported infrastructure curricula into academic institutions and sponsoring initiatives such as our BE Awards student design competition, Bentley strives to encourage a new generation to pursue careers that span the broad spectrum of infrastructure professions.”

Lofgren continued, “Each year, the job of determining the top projects in our competition becomes more challenging for our panel of independent judges – as the software tools the students are required to use help them achieve ever-higher levels of creative, quality design work.

It’s a challenge everyone involved in the program eagerly anticipates since it provides us with a growing number of incredibly imaginative entries to review and appreciate.”

University and technical college students can submit projects in one of three categories: Architectural Design, Computational Design Using GenerativeComponents, and Engineering.

In each of these categories students must make clear the project’s problem, intent, and solution, and support the design models with architectural or engineering drawings using any of the applications in Bentley’s comprehensive portfolio of software for the lifecycle of infrastructure. High school students can participate in the Design a Sports Arena of the Future category using MicroStation PowerDraft XM Edition. The fifth category, Animation and Freeform/Artistic Expression, is open to all academic levels and requires students to take their projects from concept to completion using Bentley software.

The winning projects will be recognized at BE Conference 2009, which takes place next May in Charlotte, N.C. In addition to the $1,000 scholarship, winners will receive an award trophy and can select 10 seats of Bentley software – from the more than 50 products available through the academic subscription – for use by their schools. Project submissions will be judged by a distinguished panel of educational leaders and industry professionals from around the world.

For more information on the submission process or to fill out a submission form, visit www.bentley.com/AcademicBEAwards. To view the 2008 jury process, please visit www.bentley.com/2008JuryVideo.