Distinguished alumnus visits ECS to meet ECS Entrepreneurs

ECS students had the opportunity to hear personal perspectives on entrepreneurship from distinguished alumnus, Mike Payne, when he visited the department last week.

Mike graduated from the Electrical Engineering degree at the University of Southampton in 1965. After a Masters degree in Physics in London, he moved to the United States in 1969. He is celebrated as a co-founder of some of the most important companies in the CAD and PLM communities – including SolidWorks, PTC, and Space Claim (acquired last year by ANSYS for $85M) – which have changed the way everyday articles are designed and manufactured. In 2010 Mike was awarded the CAD Society Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution, recognizing a lifetime and legacy of excellence in building business and technology for 3D CAD and engineering.

Mike was warmly welcome to ECS by Zilong Wang, President of the ECS Entrepreneurs student group which organized the event, and then distilled his experience and enthusiasm for the industry and for entrepreneurship in the first of a new regular series of ECS Entrepreneurs talks.

"It was such a great pleasure to have Mike as first speaker of our new entrepreneur talks series," said Zilong. "It means more to hear from someone who also graduated from ECS and has done something extraordinary - just as Mike did with SolidWorks. It was very inspiring."