Ahoy, hackers! AEC Hackathon 2.1 is nigh!

by ROB McMANAMY | Feb 19, 2015

Disrupting the architectural, engineering and construction community since 2013, the ongoing national phenomenon that is the AEC Hackathon makes its Chicago debut March 6-8, and BuiltWorlds is honored to be its host.

“We are so excited finally to be bringing our creative road show to Chicago,” says Paul Doherty, Hackathon co-founder, Smart Cities evangelist and President & CEO of the digit group inc., Collierville TN. “This is going to be fun.”

For three days, the friendly hackapalooza –officially organized by the nonprofit AEC Hackathon— will bring together the Midwest’s sharpest and most skilled technologists, divide them into teams, and ask them to compete for prizes while solving real industry problems posed by local firms invested in the built environment. All participants are encouraged to make all innovations developed over the weekend “open-sourced” to the industry at large.

“That’s the best part about all of this: real industry problems find real solutions, and the entire industry benefits,” says Matt Abeles, BuiltWorlds managing director, and an attendee at last September’s hackathon in Seattle. “It’s truly amazing what happens when you get all these brilliant, creative minds in the same space and force them to focus and work together on a deadline.”

REal problems, real solutions 

Indeed, as ENR magazine reported in October, significant innovations are being generated at these weekend events. “Sponsor prizes are beginning to ensure the usability and usefulness of software developed at the AEC hackathons now popping up around the country,” wrote tech correspondent Luke Abaffy. He went on to detail winning apps that so far had been crash-developed for tracking tools, measuring productivity, and improving site safety, just to name a few.

In Chicago, AEC Hackathon 2.1 will be the fifth such event, following two in Silicon Valley, and one each in Seattle and New York City, which took place just two weeks ago in the offices of FieldLens. Three more are currently scheduled for this year, in Dallas, Southern California, and Seattle, again.

This week, the agenda was just released for the upcoming Hackathon here at BuiltWorlds. Here are the topics and speakers confirmed for Saturday, March 7:

9:30  am – Efficiency & Collaboration with PDF in a Paperless World, Kellie Ward, BlueBeam

10:15 am – VR & Oculus Rift Technology in Architecture, Nate Beatty, IrisVR

11:00 am – Gaming Technology & Construction, Ricardo Khan, Mortenson Construction

Break

1:00 PM – Big Data, not Big Brother, Paul Doherty, the digit group

1:45 PM – Increasing the Workforce via Technology, Andy Jansen, Hard Hat Hub

2:30 pm – Reality Capture in AEC, Kevin Bredeson, Pepper Construction

3:15 pm – Bringing Technology to Engineering, Kelsey Taylor, EngageCivil

4:00 pm – Digital fab, Advanced manufacturing meet High Tech, Damon Hernandez, IDEAbuilder

4:45 PM – Cloud-based Mgmt & Lean Construction, Vishal Porwal, Gameplan Cloud

5:30 PM – Websites & Mobile Apps for the AEC industry, Kate Garmey, Table XI

6:15 PM – 3D Printing & Laser Scanning, Kevin Carr, MasterGraphics

For more event details and ticket information, click here.