This week, CitA’s Dr Alan Hore talked to BIMIreland.ie about the 1st CitA Breakfast Meeting of 2016: ‘Building Momentum by Working Together’ which was held on 10th February and upcoming meetings.
This opening event sought to set the context for the series. We asked Alan about how CitA selected the speakers. He said ‘I had seen Paul Doherty of the Digit Group present at the RTC Conference in 2014 and I was very impressed. Paul provided the ideal “big” message on why we need to work together by selecting smart technologies to create great buildings and infrastructure. I met Brendan Keane of Intel at the CitA BIM Gathering and was aware of his involvement with the Construction Client Forum (CCF). Brendan was keen to find out more about our BIM Innovation Capability Programme (BICP) project and was willing to reach out to CItA to see if we would assist in raising the value proposition for BIM for clients within the CCF. Given that CitA will be carrying out significant research over the next few years, it was great to hear from Joern Ploenning’s Smart Cities research work in IBM and also from Luis Blane from NUIG who spoke of university-industry collaboration in BIM related projects to develop useful tools and frameworks for industry.’
Follow links below to see videos of the presentations and the Q & A Session:
Paul Doherty, The Digit Group https://vimeo.com/155957187
Brendan Keane, The Construction Clients Forum https://vimeo.com/155954035
Joern Ploennings, IBM Research https://vimeo.com/155954511
Luis Blane, NUIG https://vimeo.com/155955315
Questions & Answers https://vimeo.com/155958328
Alan said all the delegates he spoke to were pleased with the speakers’ contributions. Delegates were particularly impressed by Paul Doherty’s keynote. At CitA’s breakfast meetings delegates have great networking opportunities not available elsewhere in Ireland. BIM is used in other industries, and a number of attendees were from outside construction. Alan said ‘The use of smart technologies, such as BIM, is growing in interest across the business world. Clients, in particular, are starting to see the tangible business benefits of using smart technologies, and for to broaden the debate and build the digital momentum in Ireland we need to broaden the reach of the series.’
With regards future meetings, Alan said it is important to build on the success of the first event. ‘As we progress through the next five events in 2016, we would like the institutional event partner to play a lead role in the selection of the speakers.’
Discussing the upcoming events, Alan said, ‘Given that we have started work on the BICP and the new National BIM Steering Committee we are looking to utilise the CitA Smarter Cooperative Building Series to select speakers who would be of assistance in framing our National Roadmap.’
The next meeting will take place on 9th March and will be partnered by the RIAI. The theme of the event is the Role of Digitisation in Propelling Irish Architecture.
Dr Alan Hore is one of the Founders of CitA. He is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and is the Assistant Head of School in the School of Surveying and Construction Management in Dublin Institute of Technology.
