Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1153097
38 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2019 Feature Interview by Barry Matties I-CONNECT007 During a recent trip to the U.K., Barry Mat- ties spoke with Bob Williams, the managing director of Pulsonix, about training the new generation of designers. He explained how the company reaches out to local high schools, colleges, universities, and user groups to ad- vocate for careers in PCB design and manufac- turing. Barry Matties: One topic we've been follow- ing recently is training for PCB designers. And as we see the generational shift taking place, we're looking at how new designers are com- ing in and where they're being trained. It looks like there's a real deficiency out there. Bob Williams: There is. Matties: How can we address that? Williams: A lot of people look at YouTube for training. But the problem with YouTube is that it shows you the feature and gives you the steps to follow, but it often doesn't explain why things are done one way versus another. From the years of training that we've done, we've learned where our customers struggle with the user interface, and we've made improvements to make it easier. As a result, we've built a very intuitive user interface allowing us to provide training that focuses more on using our toolset for good PCB design rather than just how to use our tools. Matties: Where are designers getting that train- ing? Williams: We're seeing universities pick this up. They're looking at courses for electronics de- sign and they're trying to run very small mod- ules. Some of the new university courses in the U.K. are running courses for how to design Pulsonix Is Bullish on Next-gen Designers Bob Williams