Inaugural Altair Enlighten Award to be Presented on Day One of Upcoming 2013 CAR Management Briefing Seminars

TROY, Mich., April 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The inaugural Altair Enlighten Award competition will announce its winner on the first day of the 2013 CAR Management Briefing Seminars (MBS), Altair announced today. The Enlighten Award, presented in collaboration with the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), is the automotive industry's first award program created specifically to acknowledge innovations in vehicle lightweighting. This year's CAR MBS will take place August 5-8 in Traverse City, Mich.

To accommodate judging for entries in process and additional nominations, the judging committee has elected to extend the submission deadline to June 14, 2013. Finalists will be interviewed during June and July, with the winner announced on August 5.

"As the Enlighten judging committee continues to evaluate each nomination for various attributes and weighting factors, what's exciting is that all submissions received to date have varying levels of complexity, degree of innovation and overall weight-savings percentage," said Giuseppe Resta, Manager of Global Automotive for Altair. "The judging committee's decision to extend the nomination deadline will provide an opportunity for pending submissions to compete in the process, as well as for continued awareness building throughout the automotive industry."

The Altair Enlighten Award aims to recognize achievements in weight reduction across the automotive industry from motorcycles to passenger cars, light-trucks to commercial vehicles and buses. The competition is open to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), systems/parts suppliers and materials suppliers from all automotive industry segments.  The award is a powerful platform to showcase success stories.

"A great number of lightweight initiatives are pursued today, catalyzing innovations in automotive design at the highest pace seen in years," said Resta. "The award allows industry leaders to be recognized by their peers and emphasize the need of early deployment of lightweighting strategies in a new-product development process."

The award aligns with the goals of CAR's Coalition for Automotive Lightweighting Materials (CALM) initiative to support the cost-effective integration of mixed materials to achieve significant reductions in vehicle mass through the collaborative efforts of the material sectors and auto manufacturers.

The Altair Enlighten Award is intended to honor the greatest achievements in weight saving each year; to inspire interest from policymakers, educators, students and the public; to create further competition for new ideas in the industry; and to provide an incentive to share technological advances.

To submit a nomination, visit the Altair Enlighten site and download the nomination form. All entries must reflect a system or component fitted to a production vehicle manufactured between August, 2011, and August, 2013, and OEM permission is required for all submissions.

About CAR
The Center for Automotive Research is a non-profit organization based in Ann Arbor, Mich. Its mission is to conduct research on significant issues related to the future direction of the global automotive industry, organize and conduct forums of value to the automotive community, and foster industry relationships.  For more information, visit the CAR website: http://www.cargroup.org/ or register for the CAR Management Briefing Seminars.

About Altair
Altair empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Privately held, with more than 1,800 employees, Altair has offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. With a 27-year-plus track record for high-end software for engineering and computing, enterprise analytics solutions, and innovative product design and development, Altair consistently delivers a competitive advantage to customers in a broad range of industries. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com or www.simulatetoinnovate.com.

SOURCE Altair