EXTON, Pa. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 8, 2011 — Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced the winners in the 2011 Bentley Student Design Competition and named Maria-Paz Gutierrez, professor, University of California, Berkeley, as Bentley Educator of the Year. The Student Design Competition awards technically advanced projects created using Bentley software by university, high school, and middle school students around the world, and recognizes the achievements of their educators and mentors. The program fosters interest and growth in the architectural, engineering, construction (AEC), geospatial, and operations professions by encouraging students to explore the software and hone the skills they’ll need as future infrastructure practitioners. The Educator of the Year award recognizes a member of the academic community who has an outstanding record of achievement and is committed to inspiring students to pursue careers in the infrastructure professions.

In the 2011 Student Design Competition, individual students or teams submitted projects in various categories depending upon their level of education. University and community college students submitted projects in four categories: “Innovation in Architectural Design,” “Innovation in Engineering Design,” “Innovation in Structural Engineering,” and “Communicating Through Visualization.” High school and middle school students submitted projects in the “Design a Concert Hall” category.

The winners in this year’s competition are:

• Ronaldo Theatre for the Arts, Kenny Tejeda, Phillip DiGiacomo, and Patrick Severe, Eastern Technical High School, Baltimore, Md., in the “Design a Concert Hall” category;
• Past Present Future: Glasgow Intervention, Ralf Furulund, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, in the “Innovation in Architectural Design” category;
• Design of Amravati Sewerage Network Using Software SewerGEMS, Pekam Rajesh Balajirao, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur, India, in the “Innovation in Engineering Design” category;
• Mechanical Wings, Tal Tadjer and Nivi Tepliz, Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Ramat-Gan, Israel, in the “Communicating Through Visualization” category.

The winning students and projects in the 2011 Student Design Competition will be recognized at their respective schools. Additionally, winners or winning teams will each receive a scholarship and handcrafted award to display at their schools, and will be able to choose 10 seats of Bentley software – from the more than 50 products available through the Be Careers Network academic subscription – for use by their schools.

Scott Lofgren, Bentley global director of Be Careers Network, which sponsors the competition, said, “I congratulate each of the winners in the 2011 Bentley Student Design Competition, and thank all of those who participated. The increasing popularity of this program is evidenced by the record number of designs entered in the competition, and demonstrates a growing interest in the sciences in general and the engineering professions in particular among our young people. Moreover, the quality of the submissions was exceptional, making it all the more difficult for our panel of educational leaders and infrastructure professionals to award the top honor in each category. Behind the students’ impressive skills are teachers and mentors who instill in them a desire to push their abilities to perfect their designs. Their superior work in the competition proves they have the talent and dedication to one day contribute professionally to the goal of sustaining infrastructure.”

Lofgren continued, “The Educator of the Year award is presented to an esteemed individual who is skillful in advancing student development and providing an enriched environment for learning the sciences and infrastructure engineering. Professor Gutierrez focuses her classroom work on methods that interrelate multiple climatic data to associative parametrics interconnected to material analysis. Students are required to examine simultaneously physical and digital modeling, developing co-dependent informational systems to explore adaptable building systems. I congratulate professor Gutierrez for her achievements and on receiving this distinguished award.”

Said professor Gutierrez, “It hardly seems right to be receiving an award for doing something that I so enjoy, but I am nonetheless grateful for this honor and thank Bentley for making it all possible.”

Gutierrez continued, “I also want to thank Bentley for helping make my work as an educator, as well as a researcher, much easier. Preparing and exposing students to a critical understanding of methods to synchronize and evaluate complex physical parameters, particularly through interconnecting environmental and material data, has been an essential component of my pedagogy. The use of associative parametrics software from Bentley has opened invaluable opportunities for my students and research assistants to exercise the intersection of digital, environmental, and material factors with resilience and creativity. In parallel, it has provided a robust platform to develop interdisciplinary data intersecting architecture and biosciences at multiple scales as required by my research in multifunctional environmental building systems.”

For additional information about the 2011 Bentley Student Design Competition winners and the Bentley Educator of the Year, visit www.bentley.com/studentdesignwinners.

About Be Careers Network

Be Careers Network is dedicated to helping students graduate with the technology skills needed to start careers as infrastructure professionals in the architecture, engineering, geospatial, and construction fields. It accomplishes this by providing programs for students, faculty, and schools, including affordable software licenses, training, curriculum counseling, and scholarships. The programs are geared to the needs of students in universities, colleges, high schools, and technical schools. For additional information about Be Careers Network, visit www.becareers.org .