On the first general day of Autodesk University it has been active with thousands of attendees here attending in person and thousands online with the Autodesk University Virtual sessions.

My day has been a colorful blur of activity, but I am surviving. I started early in the morning then assisted in a lab session with Michael Beal “AutoCAD Toolbelt”.

After the lab I got access to the skybox in the general welcome keynote. I had some fun seating up high which was a great view for crowd photos but not so much for close up photos of the speakers.

Lynn Allen welcomed everyone to the the 17th AU.

We had Elvis sing the Legal Disclaimers for the event. It is more fun to hear Elvis sing the disclaimers, than a lawyer on stage. :-)

Autodesk CEO Carl Bass spoke to the attendees about design and what Autodesk and Autodesk customers like Intel doing these days.

We had guest speakers such as Amory Lovins cofounder and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute and Movie Producer Jon Landau.

We then had Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski show us some of the things that occurred in technology by Autodesk since some were previewed at the last Autodesk University 2008 as many of the technology previewed became reality.

It was a great general session and I was excited by the amount of Twitter Tweet traffic about the event. It was a mix from those here and from all over the world such as Jimmy Bergmark in Sweden. Use the hashtag #AU2009 when referring to Autodesk University 2009.

Following up the excitement of the general session keynote we had lunch with around 6000 people.

For those who missed this keynote session, it will be available  under On Demand tab of AU Virtual Player in Autodesk University Virtual AUv.

Now back to running around and getting ready for the big AutoCAD / M&E Keynote and sneak peak at the movie Avatar then the exhibit hall opening where I will be in the AutoCAD booth.

Avatar Sneak Peek at AutoCAD & M&E Keynote Today

Twitter Tweeps, don't forget to meet at the AUGI booth in the exhibit hall at 7PM for a TweetUp.

Cheers,
Shaan

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