Realize LIVE Americas 2024 recap: New ABET-recognized credential program, solving the mystery of finding the right talent and more 

Another amazing Realize LIVE Americas event is in the books! 

If you missed Siemens’ academic presence or weren’t able to attend, check out some of the highlights below. And be sure to check back here for a link to watch a recording of these sessions!

Siemens announced a new ABET-recognized industry credential program 

Realize LIVE started with a splash as Tony Hemmelgarn, president and CEO of Siemens Digital Industries Software, announced a new program to credential students and recognize career readiness. 

“We’re quite excited about this partnership with ABET,” said Tony “They are the gold standard for engineering education.” 

“Globally we can have a great impact together with ABET to integrate change in the way curricula is put together to train engineers of the future.” 

Designed to supplement a formal degree program by validating industry knowledge and skills, this program offers the first industry credential to be recognized by ABET. ABET is a nonprofit, non-governmental agency responsible for accrediting programs in applied and natural science, computing, engineering and engineering technology. 

This program will bolster engineering students’ career readiness and help industry leaders build stronger talent pipelines. 

Check out the press release to learn more about this program and how it will help alleviate the talent gap. 

Seneca Polytechnic team won the Sustainability Design Hack with Andretti 

For students, one of the most exciting events at Realize LIVE was the Sustainability Design Hack, sponsored by Microsoft, supported by Deloitte and designed by Andretti Global. This event had 18 students on site, with five teams representing both Canada and the United States. Students had just 48 hours to complete the challenge.

The winning team comprised three students from Seneca Polytechnic, namely Karandeep Singh, Matt Moulds and Andres Pinto Baute. 

After moving through a couple design iterations, they delivered a sustainable design that impressed judges and industry executives alike. 

“My favorite part about attending Realize Live was to be a part of an event that allowed no limitations to what our design for the sustainability hack would look like at the end. The most rewarding part of competing and winning was definitely exploring those areas which we never had before and getting to learn a lot about new things as a part of the research process for the Design Hack,” said Karandeep. 

For Matt, the collaboration was a highlight: 

“Personally, I found the most rewarding part of the design hack was the experience of camaraderie between the teams. Winning was certainly a nice achievement – but that collaborative experience was what really made the event a success.”  

“I don’t think any design was perfect – I’ll be the first to admit that our solution has flaws, despite winning. But every team had innovative ideas. The constructive competition, the respect between teams, and the push to make things better is the real reward.” 

Digital transformation for executives’ session was standing room only due to popular demand 

Fram Akiki, president and co-founder of Joun Technologies, held an immensely popular session on “Introducing digital transformation to executives and other decision makers.” Given that this is a significant challenge in today’s business world, it’s no surprise that Fram’s session was such a hit. 

Here’s what Fram Akiki had to say about the event: 

“First thing that hit me was that it was standing room only for my presentation!  And based on my follow-up discussion with some of the attendees, they were really interested in the lessons learned and nuggets of information that executives were taking away from my course on Digital Transformation. I enjoyed the presentation and show and look forward to attending again in the future!” 

Attendees put on their detective hats to “take the mystery” out of hiring for the right skill set in a session on Siemens credentials 

Belinda Medellin, global academics specialist with Siemens, delivered an engaging and interactive session on how Siemens is collaborating with both commercial clients and academic partners to address the skills gap with a new digital badge credentialing program with Credly. 

Belinda elaborated: 

“I think participants were most excited to see just how Siemens Global Academic team can help with the hiring process, and the fact that a global company like Siemens is able to offer something like this. Audiences were also excited about how we offer our digital badge credentialing program focusing on skills-based learning with a talent directory for their company’s talent pipelines.” 

“Vegas is known for being fun, so I wanted the audience to have a little of that in my presentation. That’s why I decided to have the audience discover some clues as detectives to figure out the mystery of finding the right talent…there were laughs, smiles, some clue busting and learning!” 

If you missed Realize LIVE this year, stay tuned for Realize LIVE 2025 at Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan!  

This event will take place from June 2-5, 2025. Get the latest updates for Realize LIVE 2025 here and watch our academic blog for more updates!