Kirby Downey DriveWorks SWUGN Leader of the Year
The SWUGN Community
Over the course of the last 2 years, SOLIDWORKS user group meetings have been held mostly virtually. During this time, this community has worked together to continue meeting up virtually and connected whenever they can.
On 21st August 2021, the 6th iteration of the SOLIDWORKS largest user group meeting ever (SLUGME 6) was held this time it was also the longest user group meeting ever with 24 hours of live streamed content from all over the world.
Every year SWUG leaders go above and beyond in their efforts to keep their groups connected as well as connected to the rest of the SOLIDWORKS Community. Once again, we wanted to recognise a leader who has stood out from the crowd.
Kirby Downey, London SOLIDWORKS User Group
At 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022, we were proud to announce that the winner of the 2021 DriveWorks Award for SWUG Leader of the Year is Kirby Downey.
Kirby is the leader of the London SOLIDWORKS User Group, which he started in May of 2017. Kirby is also the SWUG Committee Representative for the UK and a Production Technician at 3DPRINTUK.
In his spare time, you can find Kirby hosting The CORE Podcast along with co-host Jonny Harrison. In these podcasts, they talk about all things design plus anything else that comes to mind. Along the way, the pair have welcomed specialist guests to feature on the podcast including members of the SOLIDWORKS community and industry experts.
Most recently, together they hosted Hallway Hangouts as a way for people to come together to talk, share and network during 3DEXPERIENCE World 2022.
While we couldnt be together in person for us topresent the award we did the best we could!
Bridie took a photo with the award before posting it out and Kirby took a photo upon receipt.
You can read more about Kirby in our Catching Up With interview with Kirby and his CORE Podcast co-host, Jonny Harrison.
One thing that has become a passion for Kirby has been working with The Magic Wheelchair. When we caught up with Kirby in 2021, he explained to us how he learned about the organisation while at SOLIDWORKS World 2019 in Dallas.
Kirby shared with us the story of how the team were building multiple chairs to be revealed at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020.
The team came up against some challenges when they had some delivery problems and last-minute changes come up while on site that could have held up delivery of a chair to one of the children. He was truly amazed at how the entire community came through to assist with these challenges to help them meet their deadline and deliver the chair to the child.
During 3XEXPERIENCE World 2022, The CORE Podcast hosted a fundraiser for The Magic Wheelchair and smashed their goal by raising over $2,000 during and after the event. Congratulations!
Kirby joins a group ofgreat user group leaders that have won the DriveWorks Award for SWUGN Leader of the Year Congratulations Kirby and keep up the great work!
Supporting SWUG
We love being a part of the SOLIDWORKS Community and look forward to continuing to support the SOLIDWORKS User Group Network.
If you would like us to sponsor your group, get in touch and tell us about your meetings!
