UBM Electronics is launching a new keystone event that will tie together seven of the group's other events under one roof. Called DESIGN, the conference and expo will feature 300 educational sessions that take aim at the multidisciplinary evolution of electrical engineers and developers.

The first event will be DESIGN West, taking place late March 2012 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose. The Embedded Systems Conference and Expo (the group's flagship conference), Android Summit, Black Hat, Sensors in Design, Designing with LEDs, DesignMED and MultiCore DevCon will now all be combined under the DESIGN brand.

For the time being, ESC and the rest of the summits will be tagged as "A DESIGN West Summit". The seven events will essentially be co-located under the new event, pulling together much of UBM Electronics' customer base into one show and allowing them to customize their options according to the training and education they need. 

The single, big brand approach grew out of the way engineers' jobs are evolving and changes in the market place itself.

"When Embedded Systems Conference was introduced 20+ years ago, the term 'embedded' was a very small sub-set of the market," says David Blaza, vice president, UBM Electronics. "Today, nearly every design in our industry (apart from computers and servers) is embedded. Embedded has become implied with today's designs. At the same time, designs are becoming increasingly complex. Our research has shown that today's engineer is designing across 5-6 different disciplines, and engineers and developers worry more about integration with broader systems than every before."

The combined events allow UBM Electronics to offer all the content its audience needs in one spot.

In the meantime, the seven shows will not entirely disappear as standalone events. In some cases, a few will continue to be produced in other regions. ESC will continue to be produced in India and Brazil as a standalone event and Black Hat and DesignMED are also produced globally.

The group expects to have about 300 exhibitors at the first DESIGN show on about 68,000 square feet. Projected attendance will be approximately 10,000.

Along with the show's launch will be a Web site that supports the event with a decidedly content-rich offering. Using UBM's in-house virtual event service provider, UBM Studios, the site plans to be a year-round destination for content related to the events such as whitepapers, webinars, video and other collateral. The site will allow for some customization according the customer's needs and will serve up recommended content based on behavior and engagement patterns on the site.