NI Vice President Explores Converging Complexity, Changing Technology in Engineering Education

NEWS RELEASE – Oct. 16, 2006 – Ray Almgren, National Instruments vice president of product marketing and academic relations, addressed a worldwide community of engineering educators Oct. 12 at the American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE) fifth annual Global Colloquium on Engineering Education in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The colloquium brings engineering educators across the globe together and gives teachers and researchers a unique opportunity to meet and exchange ideas and viewpoints.

During his address, Almgren discussed the significant responsibility facing engineering educators who must prepare students for a career in a global, multidisciplinary engineering environment, where corporations are designing and developing products using disparate tools across multiple time zones. He also addressed how global competitiveness and time-to-market needs have positively impacted the quality of students’ education by emphasizing design aspects early and throughout their education.

Almgren leads the technical marketing operations for National Instruments as well as the company's worldwide academic relations program. Throughout his 18-year career at National Instruments, Almgren has devoted significant effort to enhancing science and engineering education and inspiring students to pursue technical careers. He pioneered many of the company's academic and university relations programs, including the ROBOLAB project, which combines LEGO® MINDSTORMS® with National Instruments LabVIEW graphical development software to introduce robotics and control in grades K-12. Almgren was also instrumental in the development of the next generation of LEGO robotics, LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT, which includes easy-to-use, intuitive software powered by NI LabVIEW.

The American Society for Engineering Education, founded in 1893, is a nonprofit organization of individuals and institutions committed to furthering education in engineering and engineering technology. In pursuit of academic excellence, ASEE develops policies and programs that enhance professional opportunities for engineering faculty members, and promotes activities that support increased student enrollments in engineering and engineering technology colleges and universities. For more information, visit www.asee.org.

About National Instruments
For 30 years, National Instruments (www.ni.com) has been a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation – a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PXI Express, PCI, PCI Express, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has 4,000 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. For the past seven years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.