DesignCon 2024: Behind the Scenes Sneak Peek

Music. Is Judy Warner. Happy New Year, and thank you for joining us this week on the Ecosystem Podcast.

This episode is the first in a series that I do every year, which is the DesignCon Pre-Game Podcast Series, because many from Sam Tech and others call this the Super Bowl of Electronics. We do a pre-game podcast, and today I'm delighted to be joined in this first episode by Suzanne Zan DeVrie, who's the group event director for DesignCon. She's going to give us insights from behind the scenes of all the tracks, the speakers, the keynotes, social events, and so much more they're planning.

If you do have a chance to attend and haven't registered, please use our special discount code ECCO, which will give you 15% off your registration or give you a free pass for the Expo. Now, without further ado, let's jump into our conversation with Suzanne Dufry of DesignCon. Hi, Suzanne. So good to see you and great to get together with you for our annual podcast in here all about DesignCon. Yeah, thanks for inviting me back, Judy. It's great to see you and I look forward

to seeing you in just a few weeks. I know. I'm getting really excited too. Stressful, but excited, which I don't need to tell that to you because you've got this whole thing on your shoulders. So since we spoke last year, our audience has grown substantially and some may not actually know about DesignCon. So can you start out by telling us a little bit about the show DesignCon, how long it's been running, where it is, and what the technology focus is of the show?

Yeah, sure. First, I want to congratulate you though on the well-earned growth. You do an amazing podcast. You've got some amazing sponsors and supporters and you deserve it. So congrats. Thank you so much. Yeah. So you and I know about DesignCon, but you're right. It's new to some folks out there. And DesignCon is the premier high-speed communication and systems design conference and expo in the US that offers industry-critical engineering education right

in the heart of innovation, right? Silicon Valley. We're returning to Santa Clara Convention Center this year for our 29th annual event. We never skipped a year. Even during COVID, we made sure that that community was supported with an in-person event as well as online resources. And we're super excited to be be back January 30th through February 1st. We can't wait.

We really can't wait to come back and to present the conference and the expo. As you know, we have 14 tracks in our conference, plus additional tracks. We have about 160 exhibitors this year, over 200 sessions, excuse me, 200 speakers and over 150 sessions. It's going to be fantastic. I don't know how you keep all this together, but it really is for engineers and technology technology, executives, and the whole ecosystem, really. Here we are 29 years in. It's been a very successful show.

I look forward to it every year, as I know you do and so many do. So what is the focus this year as far as. Who you say it would be for, and why they should attend. You know, DesignCon is really for anyone who's in engineering that wants to learn and grow their careers. But if you want to learn and grow your career and also contribute back to the engineering community, you have to be here. You absolutely have to be here. We mostly attract electrical engineers and C-level executives to the show.

We attract a lot of decision makers. So the folks that come to DesignCon are engineering and designing all the parts that bring about the most important technologies in the world, right? Folks there have worked on the iPhone. They've worked on all of the influential computers over the years. They work on the spacecraft that we're using to explore beyond this world, right?

They work on medical devices. If you're looking to expand your engineering knowledge, again, largely in electrical engineering, you should be at this show. 100% agree. So along those lines, I want to ask you a little bit later about, getting involved, but I'm going to park that for a minute. And then I'm going to ask you about this year as you just sort of breezed over. So the tracks and the scope of the programs.

So can you tell us a little bit, I know you have one keynote we can talk about, which is pretty exciting. And then let's talk about some of those tracks so people will know what's available to them. Sure. I'm really excited about our Tuesday keynote. It's with Tom Coughlin, who's a well-known engineer in Silicon Valley, and I believe across the globe as well. And he's also the IEEE 2024 president and CEO.

We're super excited to host him as our keynote. This is one of his first public speaking events as president and CEO of the IEEE, which, which, as we know, is one of the most influential and important organizations within the world of electrical engineering. We're thankful that he's coming out to speak. He's talking about general trends and innovation overall, and it's going to be a very exciting, exciting talk.

Then, of course, we do have the 14 conference tracks, and those vary largely around power integrity, signal integrity, PCBs. Anything that has to do with the chip on the board is really covered within those tracks. And then we also expanded DesignCon in 2022, I believe, to include the DriveWorlds conference, and that is focused on automotive, automotive engineering.

And traditionally, it's only been focused on autonomous automotive engineering, but we've expanded it this year to include electric vehicles. So we've nearly doubled the amount of content offered in that track. And it's very exciting. Automotive, as you know, is showing a double-digit industry growth. We're seeing a lot of attraction from our attendees to this type of content.

In fact, folks that attended DriveWorld content last year gave the show overall some of the highest scores we've ever seen for this show. Wow. Now, are those, is that a separate track or is there a co-located exhibit area? How does that work? Both, actually. It's a separate track to the conference. You do have access, though, with any conference pass to DriveWorld. And then we also have a section on the floor called Advanced Automotive. That includes some of our drive world focused companies.

And we've also worked with a sister show, The Battery Show, which is held in Detroit in 2024, and brought in some of their exhibitors as well. So we can talk about autonomous and electric vehicles in this one space. Which is huge, because those electric vehicles don't go anywhere without battery technology. Tremendous. Yeah. So one of the things you and I both always enjoy is some of the thought leaders in the disciplines of signal integrity, power integrity, EMI, EMC.

For folks that may not know, why don't you name drop some of the all-stars of DesignCon? Oh, gosh, I hesitate to name drop because there's so many of them. But just off the top of my head, a few of the faves out there, Kathy Liu, Heidi Barnes, Steve Sandler, Eric Bogaton, they're all coming to speak. They're tremendous friends of DesignCon, they're tremendous supporters,

and we appreciate everything that they do. And we also appreciate our 96-person technical program committee that vets all of our DesignCon content. Many of them are speaking and they're all outstanding within our industries as well.

A little plug for me, because I'm a fan, is that all of these thought leaders for if you are, you know, mid-career, you know, being able to get face-to-face with these people that have been doing this for 30, 40 years and at the top of their technology and careers, it's so valuable. I just, I can't encourage you enough to attend. So we're gonna share a discount code for you a little bit later. So let's continue on our conversation. So I know you've opened a new program

this year that you're pretty excited about. Why don't you share that? We are super excited. And it goes along with what you were just saying. DesignCon launched what's called the 40 under 40 program this year. And what we're doing is we're offering complimentary education access to 40 folks who have applied for this program. And they were vetted by the DesignCon team, as well as some industry influencers.

Influencers and they can come to design con access all of the content for free they have an exclusive networking event including some of the folks that i just mentioned being there as mentors and it's really it's a fantastic program that we really hope gives back to the community right we want to make sure that we're growing the next generation of engineers and the 40 people that were selected are exceptional exceptional people doing exceptional things and i know that

they are are going to be folks who are keynoting on our stage one day. They're just incredible. I am so excited that you guys are doing this, Suzanne, because I share your passion for, you know, upskilling and bringing these all-stars to the front, right, as maybe some of these amazing thought leaders. They might want to retire someday, but we don't let them.

Yeah, we just won't let them go, but someday. And I'm really glad to see you putting effort there. And so when will those individuals you mentioned before we started recording that you are eventually going to list them on the website? For the folks that are listening to see that list and some of the things we've been talking about, where can they go find that?

You'll find it on designcon.com in mid-January. And then at the show, all of these folks are going to be given a ribbon to attach their badge that says 40 under 40. So you can easily identify them, chat them up, have a conversation. conversation. And if you are an experienced engineer listening to this, give them your card, reach out to them, help them along the way, please.

It's so very important. And I know I don't even have to say that with our design kind of attendees because they will immediately. Yeah, they will. They'll be adopted immediately. So I love that you have taken the effort to point them out, right? So we can, you know, take them in as our little adoptees as we go. There's also, you mentioned, been some growth in regards to exhibitors and some people exhibiting that may not have exhibited in the past. Can you talk about that for a minute?

Sure, sure. So we have about 160 exhibitors total. About 40 of them are new or returning exhibitors. And we're really, you know, we're really excited about that. We, of course, still have our leaders like Amphimol, Keysight, Samtech, Cadence. All the big guys are still there representing the industry. But there are some new companies coming, many of them from overseas, to DesignCon for the first time that help keep it fresh and help keep the design ideas that are being generated very fresh.

And they're all very eager to meet with our attendees. And all the information on these exhibitors can be found in our digital extras, which is the online planning tool. So you can actually go and research these exhibitors before you get to the show. You can save who you want to see and make sure you make a plan to swing by all 160 of the booths, including Judy's booth. Yeah, I'll be there. So I think I'm at booth 645. And for our audience, please come see me. I'd love to meet you in person.

And we'll have some handouts from sponsors and stuff. We don't have that all wrapped up yet, but it'll be good. And I'd love to meet you. What's really exciting is that some of our longtime speakers have brought their organizations now to Exhibit 2. Eric Bogaton is bringing CU Boulder. Steve Sandler is bringing PicoTest. They're all going to have booths, and it's an additional place to meet with these folks. Yes, I highly encourage you to do that.

And of course, those two are regulars on the podcast, and PicoTest is a sponsor. So we are such fans of Steve and PicoTest. I'm really excited. The work that he's doing on probes, oh my goodness. He is so out on the bleeding edge edge that you really want to go by and see them. Okay, lastly, I know I need to let you go. But lastly, let's talk about the fun stuff.

The fun social events that you put together. Suzanne, tell us what you got on deck for this year. You have to plan to be at the welcome reception on Tuesday night. It's at the Hyatt, which is attached to the Santa Clara Convention Center, and that's sponsored by Samtech. It's a jungle theme. And for anybody who's been to our welcome receptions before, you know, we really do it up. So definitely plan to come. You'll network. That's It's a place to meet everyone at the show.

And then on the days of the Expo, which are Wednesday and Thursday, starting at 5 p.m. On the Expo floor, we have several of our exhibitors sponsoring what we call booth bar crawls, where you can go around and get some light bites and some beer and just chat with the companies and your peers. And it's a fun, casual time. And of course, we have our annual welcome breakfast coming back this year as well on Tuesday morning.

All are welcome at that. In the past, we have limited it, but all are welcome. Wonderful. Well, you know, you and I always hook up at these super fun parties. So I'm looking forward to those. And it really is more than a party. It's where you get to shake hands. We were talking earlier about Robert Furanek, who is a massive YouTuber, and he has engineering training on his company website called FedEvil, fedevil.com.

And I saw that Robert has a booth which I'm very excited about and the reason I mentioned that is because last year Robert was a newbie to DesignCon because he lives in Europe and I took him into Sam Tech's welcome reception and I just became a fly on the wall I was like I was like the girl of the celebrity you know everyone was like Robert Robert Robert so I'm very excited so yeah Yeah, you get to meet the Eric Bogota, Steve Sandler, Heidi Barnes,

and even Robert Ferranek at these parties. So I really encourage you to do that. Well, the last thing I wanted to wrap up with you, Suzanne, is you and I share this passion and we've seen this thing. And I want to try to communicate to our audience is the value of networking, whether it's in a social event or a track or meeting a thought leader, what does that do for someone's career or contributing or getting on a committee?

Why is this important? It's, in my mind, the only way to move your career forward and to help move those ideas forward, right? We don't, brilliance doesn't come out of a vacuum. You have to go and connect with your peers in some way. You have to shake hands. You have to have a conversation. You have to meet them in person, right? And that's not to undervalue online learning because DesignCon does that as well.

But it's one time of the year you have to come out and see people and meet and experience this community. I can't even describe how fantastic these people are. And over the many years I've been with DesignCon, I think it's about 20 years now, you know, I've seen technologies evolve out of conversations that happen at DesignCon. Absolutely. It's the basis of all of the technology out there, like we said earlier on. And I've gotten to be the fly on the wall.

I get to stand next to the rock star and hear them planning out these things. And, you know, two years later, I'm seeing it on shelves and it's incredible. So if you really do want to be part of future innovations and making the world a better place and contributing back to engineering communities, you should be at DesignCon this year. Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better. And along with your tagline of where the chip meets the board, which is absolutely true.

It's what happens between the chip and the board that gets a little tricky. And in the ecosystem, you know, my mission is to educate, connect, and equip, which is exactly what DesignCon. So it's really my biggest and favorite show of the year. So Suzanne, thank you so much. I know I can't even imagine what your schedule is like just weeks ahead of the show. But thank you so much for coming on and giving us a sneak peek of all you and your team have been planning.

Thanks for having me, Judy. Before I go, I do want to mention that there's a discount code associated with your podcast. It's EECO, which will provide any of your listeners or viewers a 15% off conference pass, any conference pass of their choosing, or a free expo pass leading up to the show. So definitely get over to designcon.com and register using the code EECO. Thank you for that. And thank you again for your support and for giving us a place at DesignCon.

We're, of course, big fans and we really appreciate your partnership. Same to you, Judy. We appreciate you and all that you do. See you soon. See you soon. For our audience, everything Suzanne and I have talked about, I'll put the links below if you didn't hear it while we were talking, including DesignCon's website where you can register where you can learn more about the tracks and get set up for success and also share the discount code below.

Thanks so much for joining us today and I hope to see you at DesignCon. Until then, always remember to stay connected to the ecosystem. Music.