Stan Pepper, chairman and CEO of The Pepper Companies, was the keynote speaker at BW Summit 2017’s kick-off reception last night. He spoke on intergenerational collaboration in the AEC industry.

We’re deep into day two of BuiltWorlds Summit 2017, and we’ve already heard tons of key insights from thought leaders across a broad spectrum of industry disciplines. Last night, for instance, in his keynote, Stan Pepper, chairman and CEO of The Pepper Companies, spoke about how the different generations in AEC can work together to share industry knowledge and understanding of new technologies. “By bringing different generational silos together,” he said, “[they can do] much more.”
Today, our speakers tackled a number of other forward-thinking topics such as resiliency, data-driven energy use, and the interaction of cloud and sensor technologies. Here’s a few of their choicest quotes from different panels.

NEW MATERIALS AND SYSTEMS

“We’re resolving the problem of the Internet of People.” —Farhan Masood (center), chief technology officer of SoloInsight, on his company’s three-dimensional facial-recognition security system

SMART AND RESILIENT CITIES

“Going digital is the only way for us to go from what we need to what we can afford.” —Robert Mankowski (second from left), civil engineer and vice president of product development for Bentley Systems, on the daunting costs for necessary repairs projected in the ASCE Infrastructure Report Card

THE NEXT GENERATION OF TOOLS

“The way digital tools are replacing physical tools, … we need to be relevant in software.” —Jake Olsen(second from right), vice president of global field engineering at DeWalt, on the growing need for toolmakers to keep up with the technologies of the new century

SENSORS, CLOUD, AND IOT IN NEW AEC TECH COMPANIES

“Suffolk Construction has dropped ‘Construction’ by emphasizing solutions consistently across the value chain in terms of safety, profitability, and performance.” —Chris Mayer (right), executive vice president and chief innovation officer of Suffolk, on the expansion of his company’s capabilities

AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY

“All [consumer AR/VR wearables] out there today, … you can’t take them onto the job site.” —Kenneth Hepburn (second from left), managing partner of NextDTech, on the limitations of today’s headset technology