Your Inside Look at How 2 Innovative Programs Are Sharing the Power of Simulation

Susan Coleman, Director of Academic and Startup Programs at Ansys, is driven by a mantra —  ONE Ansys — which was created by Ansys CEO, Ajei Gopal. This mantra “aims to remind all Ansys employees that, although we are all working on many different things, we are one global team and we should never let any barriers impact our ability to support one another, be generous with our time, or help drive success and what is right for the company,” explains Coleman. 

For her part, Coleman is living this mission through her work on two programs that she calls “innovative and exciting in similar and unique ways”: 

1. Academic Program: This program aims to help engineering students learn about the power of simulation so that they can make an impact from day one of their careers.

2. Startup Program: This program enables startups to access Ansys software at affordable prices during their early stages to help them find success through the power of simulation, which helps them save time and money by utilizing virtual prototype development and testing.

Of course, to pull off programs with such a wide reach, Coleman utilizes the support of people across Ansys. “The programs aren’t successful by my team’s efforts alone,” she shares, “these are programs that touch virtually every department at Ansys with our field sales teams ultimately executing with our customers. It’s an honor to me to be able to work to enable the success of what we accomplish through so many others.” 

To learn more about how it all works, we’ve reached out to Coleman and her colleague, Kylie Battles, Manager of Startup and Academic Program Marketing, for their unique perspectives. 

To begin, can you each tell us about your involvement in the Academic and Startup Programs at Ansys? 

Coleman: As a Director of our Academic and Startup Programs based in our Corporate Development department at Ansys, I work across our organization to drive the success of our programs, enable our sales team, engage with strategic customers, and create and execute our marketing strategy for both programs. Both programs are focused on our future users, which brings new applications of our software, innovative stories, and the opportunity to see first-hand how simulation empowers students when graduating and entering the job market. 

My day-to-day is always different, which is something I love about my role. I get to work across our organization to evolve the programs to fit our customer needs. Ansys provides lots of autonomy for me to be creative and try new things, and I get to use the different experiences I’ve had in my career as well as my own personal strengths. During my seven years at Ansys, I’ve also been able to meet new faces in our growing company as well as customers in our external ecosystems.

Battles: I’ve led the execution of the marketing activities for both the Academic and Startup Programs here at Ansys for the past three years. This includes content marketing, social media marketing, event coordination, sales enablement, data analysis, project management, and other activities. No two days are alike in my role or on our team. We are constantly evolving, taking on new projects, and facing new challenges that help our programs grow and meet our customers’ needs. 

For both programs, my goal is to display the power of simulation for the startup and academic communities through customer stories and various marketing activities; by supporting our field sales teams with resources, training, and collateral; and by tracking and analyzing data around both programs so that we know our successes as well as our potential areas of growth. Working across the organization is also key for the programs. This keeps things exciting and ever-evolving. There is never a boring day in my role!

What were some specific positive outcomes from these programs?

Coleman: The Academic Programs aim to lower the barrier to entry for learning simulation by working hand-in-hand with universities around the world to use simulation in curriculum and research. Our employees all believe in the Academic Program because they recognize that these are our future customers and employees. These students will graduate and get hired into existing or new customers or even create their own startup.

Today, we work with more than 3,100 universities across 90 countries. Additionally, we offer a wide portfolio of free resources to students and self-learners, including our free student downloads, Innovation Courses (we currently offer more than 300 free Innovation Courses), and Learning Forum to name a few. Our free student products have been downloaded more than 2.75 million times. This is particularly important for under-represented students across communities who may not traditionally have access to tools and software. We love that through our programs, we are bridging important gaps. Simulation is a powerful tool that is required for solving the world’s toughest engineering challenges. It’s so exciting to continue to see the bar for learning our tools get lower and lower and to see the impact that this will have on our world as these students enter the workforce. For example, this high school student used our software and scored a perfect on his AP Capstone Project, making him one of only 306 students globally to achieve this feat. 

Separately, our Startup Program aims to make our software affordable and accessible to early-to-mid-stage startups through physics-based product bundles. We have had more than 1,850 startups across 57 countries join our program since it launched, but what is more exciting is seeing the amazing work these companies are doing. From companies like Climeworks, which is fighting global warming through direct air capture, to 1X (previously Halodi Robotics), which is making an android capable of human-like movements and behaviors to help fill gaps in the healthcare industry, to X1 Wind, which is creating wind floats to help us have a more sustainable future — I couldn’t think of a better job than to be able to play a small part in these types of use cases that are powering innovation to drive human advancement.

What are you most proud of about these programs?

Battles: I am most proud of the impact these programs have on our customers. Whether it’s a student learning Ansys in their undergraduate program and landing a great job where they can apply their Ansys skills or a startup that started with just an idea and used Ansys from the very beginning to bring their idea to life — knowing that we had an impact in those individual journeys inspires and excites me to get to work every morning.

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