Knowing that I would be making the switch from being a Labs guy to helping the Office of the CTO with our internal Autodesk Forge usage, I attended last year's DevCon in San Francisco. This was the most photographed side of the conference:

As you may recall, Forge is our collection of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) and supporting materials for developing and extending cloud-based services and a community of customers and partners that make use of those APIs.

By all measures, last year's Forge developers' conference was a big success.

• 6 Tracks: Product Design and Manufacturing, AEC, Forge Basics, AR/VR, IoT, Business Development
• 15+ exhibitors and various Forge expert tables for technical training and support
• 24 classes with packed classes throughout the day

ForgeDevCon was also a great place to network.

For this year, the Autodesk Forge team decided to integrate the DevCon with Autodesk University in Las Vegas so that developers and users can share in the experience. Here are the details.

The Autodesk Forge Developer Conference (Forge lDevCon) is the largest gathering of design and engineering software developers in the world and efforts for 2017 are ramping up. This year we are partnering with Autodesk University (AU). No longer do you need to choose between DevCon and AU. You can do both.

New for this year is a call for proposals. We have expanded our efforts and want you to help shape the event. This year is unique as we will be:

• Accepting applications until May 17
• Taking class recommendations until May 17
• Hosting community voting from May 17 to June 16

Are you an expert in using Autodesk Forge or the Fusion 360 APIs? Have you found creative ways to integrate and use Forge in your real-life projects and products? Have you developed processes that improve company workflows and efficiency? Do you have ideas about where your industry is headed? Are you an expert in a web technology that complements Forge? If so, then you're a candidate to speak at Forge DevCon.

Forge DevCon will be held over two days: Monday, November 13 and Tuesday, November 14.

• Monday classes will be open to Forge DevCon attendees only.
• Tuesday classes will be open to all Forge DevCon and Autodesk University (AU) attendees and will be co-listed with the AU Software Development Track.

The Forge DevCon 2017 Tracks include:

• Architecture, Engineering and Construction
• Manufacturing and Design
• Cross Industry/General Programming Topics

All Forge DevCon classes will be related to Autodesk Forge, Autodesk Fusion 360, or complementary APIs. As is typical at AU, the class formats for Forge include:

• Presentation (60-minutes)
• Panel (60-minutes)
• Lab (90-minutes)

To register for the conference on November 13/14 or submit your proposal to teach a class (do so by May 17), visit the Forge DevCon 2017 page.

Web service development is alive in the lab.