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In June 2020, Sanket Patil found himself in a cold and damp basement in Calgary, Canada. It was the basement of Christian Bagg, the founder of Bowhead Corp., a startup designing and building adaptive off-road bikes that at the time was very much still in its cold-and-damp-basement days. Sanket was looking for a job, and Christian had discovered that he knew how to use SOLIDWORKS.<\/p>\n
Christian showed Sanket their bike\u2019s CAD system and Patil was, in his words, \u201chorrified\u201d by its chaotic organization. In Bowhead\u2019s defense, Christian wasn\u2019t an engineer \u2013 but Sanket himself had come to engineering in a bit of a roundabout way.<\/p>\n
Sanket\u2019s family moved around a lot during his childhood, and Patil and his mother finally settled in the Indian city of Pune at the beginning of his sixth grade. Pune was a metropolitan center and an education hub, which was likely conducive to Sanket\u2019s innate curiosity and inquisitiveness.<\/p>\n
He loved science, and very quickly decided that he wanted to pursue it as a career. So as his peers were dreaming of becoming rockstars and prima ballerinas, Sanket decided he was going to be an astrophysicist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really interested in all things related to galaxies, black holes, universes, stuff like that,\u201d he explains. “My friends nicknamed me the mad scientist because I talked about it all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Studying astrophysics in Pune was very competitive, however, and unfortunately not in the cards for Sanket. Instead, he started his Bachelor\u2019s degree in Physics. After two weeks, however, he got into a tiff with a professor who did not appreciate Sanket\u2019s constant questions. Fortunately, this also coincided with Sanket\u2019s realization that the career prospects for a physicist in India at the time were not promising.<\/p>\n The subject that finally stuck was mechanical engineering, and specifically design, which finally answered a question that Sanket had been wondering throughout his entire academic career: why do we need math<\/em>? His teachers had only ever provided an abstract answer \u2013 but now here was grounded practical proof.<\/p>\n \u201cIn design engineering you can solve equations, you can find the dimensions of parts, you can create machines and hold them in your hands. It\u2019s a way to solve problems using mathematics with tangible solutions,\u201d he explains, \u201cand that is what really intrigued me.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduating with his Bachelor\u2019s degree, he pursued a Master\u2019s degree in design at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, a highly competitive university. During his interview, Sanket was asked to redesign a motorcycle helmet.<\/p>\n He made a sketch of a helmet that, among other things, incorporated internal speakers, and then defended his idea to the university\u2019s dean of students. Sanket thought the interview went terribly, but the dean \u2013 unlike the physics professor \u2013 must have admired his tenacity and extended an acceptance letter a week later.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been a designer ever since,\u201d he says proudly. Since then, he\u2019s worked on designs for everything from endotracheal tubes to baby strollers.<\/p>\n Sanket was exposed to SOLIDWORKS for the first time while working at HCL Technologies on a project for Siemens, which had acquired a Boston-based company that used SOLIDWORKS.<\/p>\n \u201cIt immediately struck me that SOLIDWORKS was very different from the previous software that I had used,\u201d Sanket says.<\/p>\n While other software requires users to follow a certain sequence to achieve a design, \u201cSOLIDWORKS was more similar to real-world engineering problems, in that there is more than one way to model an object, to reach a solution.\u201d He also says that it felt easy and intuitive to use. Sanket quickly became adept at SOLIDWORKS and earned his Certified SOLIDWORKS Professional (CSWP) certification.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter I started using SOLIDWORKS in the proper way, I found that other tools were just not as good,\u201d he admits. He\u2019s even actively avoided working on projects that don\u2019t use SOLIDWORKS.<\/p>\n Sanket moved to Canada in 2018, and about two years later he was in the market for a new job after Thule announced that it was closing its design center in Calgary. Cue Christian Bagg. The founder was looking to buy some office equipment and tools, since Thule was closing down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSo he walks by and he sees me using SOLIDWORKS and he asks, \u2018are you any good at it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sanket was extremely good at it.<\/p>\n And so Christian invited him to Bowhead\u2019s headquarters, which brings us back to his cold and damp basement. After getting over the shock of the disorganized CAD design, Sanket offered to help get him get a better design set-up. Christian readily accepted, and as Sanket started organizing the work, he also began suggesting design improvements to the design of the bikes, and set up the startup\u2019s engineering change process.<\/p>\n I was not surprised to hear that in less than six months, Christian offered Sanket a full-time position.<\/p>\n Sanket eventually transitioned the Bowhead team onto the 3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE platform, which he realized would be able to scale up with the company as they grew. Then in 2022, Bowhead was invited to present its bike to 3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE World at the Champions\u2019 meeting, where Sanket was surprised to see just how big and enthusiastic the SOLIDWORKS community is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d been using SOLIDWORKS for six years by then, but I was speaking to people who had been using it for 20 years!\u201d he remembers. \u201cThere was instant bonding, they were my kind of people \u2013 the people whose day starts and ends with SOLIDWORKS.\u201d That night, Sanket applied to the Champions program from his hotel room, and he was accepted shortly after returning to Calgary. Now, Sanket sits on the Champions program advisory council.<\/p>\n The reason behind his success? Falling in love with the process.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I liked astrophysics, but I dropped it as soon as I met a roadblock. When I started in engineering, I was hitting roadblocks constantly, but I liked solving those problems,\u201d he explains. \u201cFalling in love with those pain points and the everyday grind is what passion actually is.\u201d<\/p>\n SOLIDWORKS Champion of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Perhaps one of the biggest honors of Sanket’s life happened this year in Houston. On the final day of 3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE World 2025, Matthew Clegg, Manager of the SOLIDWORKS Champions program, announced the SOLIDWORKS Champions of the Year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a very elite and boisterous band of SOLIDWORKS nerds. Think of that one person at work who loves to learn, knows every SOLIDWORKS feature and function imaginable, and they aren\u2019t satisfied until\u00a0you<\/span><\/em>\u00a0know them too.\u201d Matt said. \u201cWell, we\u2019ve carefully collected 400 of them from 52 countries, and we\u2019re kind of a big deal.<\/span>\u200b<\/p>\n Our 2024 SOLIDWORKS Champion of the Year is\u2026\u00a0\u200bSanket Patil! <\/strong>You can read the full blog recapping the final day of 3D<\/strong>EXPERIENCE World here<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/11\/image20520-20childhood20photo-rotated.jpg\")
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