I had been told by quite a few people that my head would be spinning by the end of the day one at SolidWorks World. Well, I can’t say it’s really spinning, but I actually feel fired up and full of energy after this crazy cool day I’ve had today.

This is a picture I took of the breakfast area this morning. See all this people? This is only a small fraction of all the people present here at SolidWorks World. According to what was said today at the first of three  general sessions, a bit more than 4,300 people showed up this year, which is actually more than they were expecting, given that the country is going through a recession and many companies need to cut down on their expenses or let people go (not precisely go to SolidWorks World).

The day started early with the General Session. Jeff Ray, CEO of DS SolidWorks, began the session by commenting on some statistics that talk about the company’s achievements and goals for the near future. In this image here you can see how DS SolidWorks rates itself when it comes to Customer Service, Performance and User Experience. According to Jeff Ray, this ratings come directly from feedback gathered from the users in many different ways and is considered to be accurate and sufficiently representative of the great majority of users. Notice that none of these grades is a solid A or even a B+; the reason for this is simple: there’s always room for improvement, and I think they always keep that in mind all the time.

But Jeff Ray didn’t only feed us statistics, he also shared with us a few stories of ingenuity involving SolidWorks users out there, like the design of the a mini wind powered generator, that could very well be a solution for the energy crisis, and supply clean energy to a household or building for an affordable price. This is a picture of the design.

The amazing efforts from Regenerative Technologies (RTI) were also mentioned among these stories. This company has developed technology capable of cleansing bone tissue without breaking down the cells, making it possible for everything to be used, with next to zero waste. This allows saving hundreds of lives out of one single donor. Amazing, isn’t it?

Another one of these stories shared by Jeff Ray was about this company called Trojan UV Technologies that came up with the idea of bombarding water with UV light in order to purify it. This amazing technology will hopefully provide a solution for the huge problem that affects a large percentage of the human population on earth: the lack of safe drinking water.

Another amazing story of ingenuity shared by Jeff Ray involved a company named Design That Matters (DTM) and their incubators for premature babies made out of salvaged parts from old vehicles. They are building these for third world countries, where the index of mortality is greatest during the first year of life, mainly due to lack of medical attention and equipment. This project in particular seems to have called the attention of Sir Richard Branson, founder and president of Virgin Group, and who was the guest keynote speaker at today’s general session.

Jeff Ray’s interview of Sir Richard Branson went pretty much like a chat. Turns out that Sir Branson is a very easy going and fun person, who, in his own words, can’t say no to a challenge and loves trying to do things that haven’t been done before. This personal trait is probably part of what has contributed to his incredible success.  I was surprised by how many different industries are part of the Virgin group, including not only the records company, Virgin airlines and Virgin Galactic, but many more I would’ve never imagine, such as Virgin Books, Virgin Health, and Virgin Money.

Something that he said really touched me, because it speaks of his concern with the individual, rather than the profit. See, Jeff Ray asked him what his advice would be for companies trying to make it in this weak economy.  His advice was for the companies was to continue to employ people. He said before laying off their workforce, companies need to sit down with them and try to find other solutions, such as job sharing or cutting down hours.

By the way, Sir Branson didn’t charge a fee for his appearance at SolidWorks World, but rather asked that the “payment” was actually given as a donation for his group of elders, a cause that he supports and strongly believes in.