Autodesk coughs up funds for clean-tech projects

Design software company Autodesk is at is again. The company has set up a software grant fund in which it will provide bundles of its design applications, worth up to $150,000 a pop, to companies that are working on early-stage, clean technology projects. Just as it did in the past, when the PC was in its infancy, the developer is hoping to get in at the ground floor of innovation, so that as these companies expand, more and more employees will use its design tools as a means of addressing environmental challenges.

Each Autodesk Clean Tech Software grant recipient will be entitled to the following software: Autodesk Inventor Professional, Autodesk Showcase Professional, Autodesk Vault Manufacturing, Autodesk Navisworks Manage, Autodesk Revit Architecture and Autodesk Alias Design. Each company will be entitled to use up to five commercial licenses of each application.

Autodesk has already given out similar sets up software to 13 start-up organizations. It hopes to award its software to 100 companies by the end of January 2010. For more information on how to apply, visit this Web site.  In addition, this blog entry provides more context around the work that Autodesk is doing to make sure that it is associated with anything that smacks of clean tech, sustainability or just good economic sense.