Tony Fadell, the designer who spearheaded the Apple team that brought the iPod to market, will keynote SolidWorks World 2012, the company’s annual summit of engineers and designers. Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp.’s SolidWorks World event will take place Feb. 12-15, in San Diego, and focus on the theme of "united by design."

Known as the "father of the iPod," Fadell made his mark via his former positions as Apple’s senior vice president of the iPod division and adviser to Steve Jobs. Today, Fadell is founder and CEO of Nest, a hot startup that’s introduced the world’s first learning thermostat. The Nest Learning Thermostat learns about you and your home to automatically turn itself down when you're away, guide you to energy-efficient temperatures when you’re home, and free you from programming hassles by creating a customized temperature schedule.

"To create a game-changing product, function and design must go hand in hand," says Fadell. "We certainly put that principle to work when developing the Nest Learning Thermostat, and I’m excited to share more about that experience with the thousands of passionate, designers and engineers who will attend this year’s SolidWorks World."

To this end, crowd sourcing will be a hot topic on day two of SolidWorks World. Social development is becoming increasingly important to product ideation and creation, and SolidWorks customers will showcase how it’s easier than ever to bring ideas to fruition. With an engineering-focused hive mindset, creativity and expertise come together in incredible products. Stay tuned for more ideas that will change the way you think about product development.

Day three of the event will bring the What’s New session. Attendees will get a sneak peek of SolidWorks 2013, as well as a view of what’s on schedule for SolidWorks -- and its users -- this year. A complete agenda is available online. Users can register for SolidWorks World 2012 at https://registration.itnintl.com/sww12/regonline/RegLogin.aspx . Early bird discounts end on January 20.