Middle East BIM Summit 2018 – Event Review
Topic for this year was ‘the next step in the BIM revolution’
Making a comeback for the third year, Big Project ME had its biggest ever Middle East BIM Summit on October 28th, at the Habtoor Grand Hotel in Dubai.
This year, the event focused on how new technology is being utilised in conjugation with BIM, and how it can be applied for sustainable construction.
With more than 300 delegates, panellists, and speakers encompassed of consultants, contractors, and government personalities, the event was a resounding success. Mediated by Farah Kurdi, AECOM, the event included three panel discussions and four presentations followed by a networking lunch.
Kurdi kicked off the first panel discussion on how the construction industry is utilising new technologies and how these advancements are making way for an integrated approach towards BIM.
Certain interesting topics were covered in the discussion where Djordje Grujic, Architectural Corner, mentioned that technology should be the base of our business and how Integrated Project Delivery helps everyone find information in one place. Carolina Fong Guzzy, Accienta, agreed with the sentiment and said that: “Integrated design delivery needs collaboration between all stakeholders.” The panel concluded with Marwan Abu Ebeid, Turner International ME, reiterating that, “IM should be part of the daily process within the team.”
To put the panel discussion in perspective, it was followed by a presentation on how BIM will evolve in the future by Prakash Senghani, AECOM, where he spoke how contractors have started to adopt BIM by their own choice since the last one year.
A panel discussion about Big Data for BIM was next on agenda, moderated by Craig Garrett, Bentley Systems. The panel discussed using the Internet of Things (IoT) on BIM projects and harvesting data and using it for the future. “With Big Data analytics, it’s possible to see the how the model compares and understand how it will develop further”, said Joylyn Dela Cruz, Aurecon while the panel discussion ended with Garrett asking an important question about who owns the data. This made way for a well-rounded discussion with some conflicting answers.
The second presentation of the day was from Raguram Jayaram, Bentley Systems who started the presentation with an interesting fact that ‘by 2020, it is estimated that there will be 50 billion connected devices in the world and this will evolve how smart environments function.’ And then he went on to talk about the role of drones in Digital Transformation.
The final panel discussion for the day was chaired by Phillipa Grant, AESG, and discussed the importance of BIM in sustainability. The major debate revolved around using BIM to create smarter buildings and cities, and for net-zero energy buildings. The takeaway from the panel was that ‘being sustainable had become easier now, but it’s a matter of clients wanting to do it.’ Sunderasan Krishnan, S&T Interiors and Contracting and Arsanious Abtnago, ASGC Construction LLC, both agreed with this.
The second to last presentation of the day was given by Clifford Kneale, Pace on Asset Information Model and why it’s important for organisations to adopt COBie. Earlier panellist Marwan Abu Ebeid returned to give the final presentation for the day and discussed BIM standards around the world.
