{"id":3971,"date":"2014-03-04T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/pressrelease\/autodesk-establishes-global-foundation-to-accelerate-design-led-revolution"},"modified":"2018-10-02T18:17:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T22:17:38","slug":"autodesk-establishes-global-foundation-to-accelerate-design-led-revolution","status":"publish","type":"pressrelease","link":"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/en\/pressrelease\/autodesk-establishes-global-foundation-to-accelerate-design-led-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Autodesk Establishes Global Foundation to Accelerate Design-Led Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Public Company Information: NASDAQ: ADSK SAN RAFAEL, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE<\/a>)–Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today launched the Autodesk Foundation, which will invest in and support the most impactful nonprofit organizations using the power of design to help solve epic challenges, such as climate change, access to water, and healthcare, among others. In partnership with the company, the Autodesk Foundation will provide select design-oriented grantees with software, training and financial support. \u201cWe have been delighted by the number of people using our technology to design a better world and solve global problems,\u201d said Autodesk President and CEO Carl Bass. \u201cThese are the people who inspired us to align our philanthropic giving with our core business, to support more of these nonprofits to bring their ideas to market. We will also be encouraging the thousands of Autodesk employees to get involved in Foundation programs.\u201d \u201cWe believe that design offers humanity our greatest hope for addressing some of the most urgent, inter-connected and non-negotiable challenges of our time,\u201d says President and CEO of the Autodesk Foundation and Autodesk Senior Director of Sustainability Lynelle Cameron. \u201cWe want to support and accelerate the design-led revolution currently underway, by investing in design-driven entities that are pursuing scalable solutions with measureable impact.\u201d Tackling Epic Challenges Through Impact Design<\/strong> Impact design focuses on generating significant, measurable progress toward solving today\u2019s epic challenges \u2013 access to healthcare and education; clean energy and water; efficient transportation; or the many other global problems we face. Through the Foundation\u2019s\u00a0Impact Design Program<\/a>, carefully selected nonprofits will receive funding, and in partnership with Autodesk, Inc., software and training to create solutions that address these challenges. KickStart International, one of the Foundation\u2019s pilot grantees, exemplifies impact design. The Foundation recently hosted four of their engineers from Kenya to come to San Francisco for a multi-week design software immersion and fabrication workshop. KickStart designs simple agricultural irrigation tools that help African farmers start profitable businesses and rise out of poverty. \u201cBefore this training, it took more than a year and 20 hand-made prototypes to develop a subassembly of our water pump. Now we have been able to design, test critical prototypes of the next version of our irrigation pump with Autodesk tools, and then fabricate them at the Autodesk facilities. We are saving months of work and will be able to create better products, faster, from now on,\u201d explained Alan Spybey, director and designer at KickStart. The program\u2019s first grantees also include: <\/p>\n