Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1199133
30 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2020 Feature Interview by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 Yes, you read that right. The IPC Designers Council is now known as IPC Design. Many of you have heard secondhand stories about what this change will entail, so I asked IPC to shed some light on this subject. I recently spoke with IPC's Teresa Rowe and Patrick Crawford about what's changing, what's not, and IPC's plans to provide improved infrastructure for PCB design content and curriculum. Andy Shaughnessy: Teresa, why and how is the IPC Designers Council (DC) changing? Teresa Rowe: It has been about 15 years since IPC took a look at the design community at large. During that time, a lot has changed in the industry. It was time to look at where our pockets of designers were and how IPC's de- sign products were being used in the industry and addressing the design programs, overall. It is changing in a way that will address the com- munity at large. Shaughnessy: And what will the new program name be? Patrick Crawford: It will be called IPC Design. We're going to be mixing the power of IPC and the design community. Rowe: It embraces standards development, ed- ucation, the foundation piece of it, designer community leadership, etc. It brings the de- sign community together in one place to move forward. Crawford: The core of the new program will be to empower and benefit more PCB designers, as I think it always has been. We want to bring more of IPC's resources to bear on the design community in the sense that we have a vast member network and a vast digital infrastruc- ture that can track committees, create groups, and allow them to disseminate knowledge on- line. We have a large body of expertise in our IPC education and certification department. The point is that we have many parts of IPC that could be better channeled into the design community. Looking at this, we love the idea of hav- ing these regional groups as the IPC DC—a forum by which designers can communicate and disseminate knowledge. What we want to do is take that idea and build a stronger scaf- IPC Designers Council Has a New Name: IPC Design