When
Nov 18, 2026 - Nov 19, 2026
Where
The 2026 Venture East: AEC Emerging Tech Conference is a showcase of the newest tech transforming jobsites around the globe. It’s designed to put contractors at the leading edge of innovation in the built environment. The event will connect GCs and specialty contractors to the wider world of emerging tech, providing an interactive environment for discovery, validation, and partnership through collaborative Working Group sessions, roundtable discussions, workshops, case studies, and variety of program curated to help attendees move past pilots and learn to work more effectively with startups, founders, and innovative tech.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
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General contractors and specialty contractors seeking early access to emerging technology solutions and pilot opportunities that can drive field productivity and margin improvement
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Architects and engineers exploring next-generation design tools, digital workflows, and materials that enhance project delivery and coordination
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Venture capital and corporate venture capital teams tracking early-stage built environment innovation and sourcing differentiated deal flow
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Early-stage construction technology startups looking to validate use cases, secure pilot partners, and build relationships with strategic investors and operators
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Growth-stage technology vendors aiming to expand enterprise adoption, form strategic partnerships, and better understand contractor and owner buying behavior
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Industry consultants and advisors supporting digital transformation, innovation strategy, and technology implementation across the built environment
WHAT YOU'LL GAIN
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Real-world playbooks and case studies highlighting examples of how emerging technologies move from pilot to scaled adoption, including what worked, what failed, and how teams proved ROI
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Panels on moving from pilot to scale, covering partnership strategy, pilot design, field adoption, and the operational changes needed to make new technology stick
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Roundtable sessions led by general contractors, VCs, CVCs, and tech providers, designed as small-group, interactive discussions where attendees exchange perspectives on partnerships, product fit, deal flow, and adoption challenges
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Peer discussions that allow attendees to benchmark strategies, compare experiences, and pressure-test ideas with others across the ecosystem
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Structured networking through Dealmaker’s Alley, enabling targeted meetings between startups, GCs, VCs, and CVCs focused on pilots, partnerships, and investment opportunities
PRICING AND REGISTRATION
Stacey Rothgeb
Strategy Lead, Buildings and Industrial Energy Innovation Center (BIEIC), NLR (formerly NREL)
Our Dealmaker's Alley Hosts:
Book 30-minute meetings with the investors and contractors hosting tables at AEC Emerging Tech, for funding, pilot and partnership conversations.
AEC Emerging Tech Pre-Event & General Sessions
Day 1 Schedule
Boston Built Week | Monday, November 16 - Thursday, November 19, 2026
Boston Built Week: where the boldest builders, breakthrough technologies, and biggest ideas shaping the built world come together.
View and Request to Join Boston Built Week Anchor Events Here.
Suffolk BOOST Cohort 7 Demo Day | Wednesday, November 18, 2026
The culminating event of Suffolk Technologies' built-environment accelerator. A keynote opens the afternoon before the seven BOOST companies take the stage to pitch their solutions to an audience of industry leaders, investors, and potential customers.
Request to Join BOOST 7 Demo Day by Suffolk Technologies Here.
Day 2 Schedule
Check-in, Breakfast, Networking | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Opening Remarks | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Speaker:
Rosemarie Lipman, CEO, BuiltWorlds
Keynote | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Every contractor has a graveyard of promising pilots. In this keynote, Paul DiMarino, CIO of Shawmut Design and Construction, shares the buyer's-side view of how a national, employee-owned GC decides what to test, what to scale, and what to stop. Drawing on real wins and misses, he'll offer a practical framework for turning emerging technology into everyday practice, and what founders, investors, and fellow contractors can do differently to get there.
Speaker:
Paul DiMarino, CIO, Shawmut Design and Construction
Panel: From First Meeting to Market: How GCs, Investors and Industry Players Grow Early-Stage Startups | Thursday, November 19, 2026
This session unpacks the journey from first meeting to scaled deployment for early-stage construction and built environment startups. General contractors, investors, industry players, and founders will discuss how they source one another, design high‑value pilots, structure early partnerships, and build the proof points needed to move from pilot to portfolio-wide rollout. Attendees will leave with a clearer view of what “investable” and “implementable” looks like to GCs and capital providers at the earliest stages.
Speakers:
Mike Martin, Director, Emerging Technologies, McGough
Jesse Sanders, Director of IT, Clayco
Cutler Knupp, VP, Strategy and Corporate Development, Haskell
Building Tech Working Group Session | Thursday, November 19, 2026
This session is restricted to members of BuiltWorlds' Building Tech Research Track ONLY.
Building Tech Working Group Session Registration.
Manifesting Innovation: Co-Creating the Future of the Built World
SOM has a 90-year history of interdisciplinary innovation. Three years ago, SOM spun off a new entity (SOM IW) to expand upon this legacy through strategic partnerships aimed at breaking down silos and co-ideating future products, materials, and technologies. We achieve this by partnering with industry experts, leveraging our network and domain expertise, and using our projects to pilot innovations. This session will present how SOM IW operates to achieve these goals and explore collaboration opportunities for the future of our industry.
Facilitators:
Chas Peppers, Director, SOM IW
Michael Cascio, Operations & Portfolio Manager, SOM IW
Networking Break | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Demo Day | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Demo Day at AEC Emerging Tech will feature 6–10 early-stage construction and built environment startups presenting in a live pitch competition. Founders will showcase their solutions, share traction and use cases, and highlight how their technology improves workflows, safety, sustainability, and project performance across the AEC ecosystem. Attendees will see emerging tools before they scale, hear directly from the teams building them, and have opportunities to connect around pilots, partnerships, and investment conversations.
Presenting Companies:
AeroNova Advanced Materials; AeroShield; Argis Labs; Forsured; Human Friendly Robotics; Living Building Systems; Merge-Tek; SpecFunnel; ZS2 Technologies
Judging Companies:
Blackhorn VC; Gray Capital; Ironspring Ventures; Leonard by VINCI; MetaProp; MIT
Lunch | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Venture & Investment Working Group Session | Thursday, November 19, 2026
This session is restricted to members of BuiltWorlds' Venture & Investment Research Track ONLY.
Venture & Investment Working Group Session Registration.
The Future of Decision-Making for the AEC Industry - Create a Connected Infrastructure Ecosystem
The rapid growth of AI infrastructure and increasingly complex projects outpace the AEC industry's ability to design, procure, and deploy capacity quickly. Supply chain uncertainty, labor shortages, and the loss of tribal knowledge as experienced workers retire add to the challenge. This working group will examine how corporate ventures and investors can create optionality by identifying constraints, leveraging strategic assets, and developing partnerships with emerging technologies to improve visibility, speed, and scale across builders, general contractors, construction & infrastructure partners and owners. Attendees will exchange best practices and explore transformational ideas and breakthrough technologies across engineering, procurement, construction, inventory management, and infrastructure to create differentiated advantage and reshape the future of AEC Industry.
Facilitator:
Rose Chen, Founder, Vegalab Ventures
Venture Research Presentation | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Audrey Lynch, Director of Research, BuiltWorlds
SPONSORED SESSION - Neuron Factory: Precon’s Groundhog Day: The Cost of Forgetting Institutional Knowledge
Zaid Kahn, CEO & Co-Founder of Neuron Factory and Mack Rush, Senior Associate of Emerging Technologies at Suffolk Technologies, tag-team to tell a story every precon leader will relate to. A team in one region hits a costly, avoidable issue on a project, while a nearly identical project in another office runs into the same issue months later, because there was no way for that lesson to travel. Mack shares how this institutional-memory gap has played out inside Suffolk’s regional office structure, and Zaid explains how Neuron Factory was made to surface cross-project lessons automatically, before construction begins, rather than relying on someone remembering to mention it in a hallway conversation. This talk will present a live example for viewers to follow along and see the results for themselves.
Speakers:
Zaid Kahn, Co-Founder & CEO, Neuron Factory
Mack Rush, Senior Associate, Emerging Technologies, Suffolk Technologies
Construction Tech and Equipment & Robotics Working Group Session
This session is restricted to members of BuiltWorlds' Construction Tech and Equipment & Robotics Research Tracks ONLY.
Construction Tech and Equipment & Robotics Working Group Session Registration.
Cutting Through the Noise: Identifying and Selecting High-Impact Construction Tech and Robotics
The rapid influx of new construction equipment and robotics makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish which emerging technologies will actually drive field productivity. In this collaborative working group, we will explore practical frameworks for vetting solutions, identifying high-value use cases, and confidently selecting tools that align with your operational goals. Join industry peers to share strategies for cutting through the hype and choosing scalable, implementable technologies that deliver genuine ROI on the jobsite.
Facilitator:
Tyler Westfall, Senior Innovation Specialist, Rosendin
SPONSORED SESSION - ConCntric
ConCntric’s 360‑degree preconstruction platform unites data, workflows, and people to provide a dynamic view of projects and portfolios. In this sponsored session, ConCntric and a customer will share a case study illustrating how unified preconstruction processes support better planning, budgeting, procurement, and collaboration, helping teams win more work and deliver with greater certainty of outcome.
Speakers:
Steve Dell’Orto, Founder and CEO, ConCntric
Valerie Paquin-Gould, Senior Preconstruction Manager, Consigli
WORKSHOP - Adoption Studio: From Pilot to Portfolio
What prevents a promising technology from becoming a first pilot, and what prevents a successful pilot from scaling? In this interactive World Cafe, large general contractors, owners and developers will compare concrete adoption barriers and identify the support needed to overcome them. The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), formerly NREL, and IN2 will introduce the proposed Adoption Studio model and use the discussion to surface customer priorities, program requirements and potential contributions to a repeatable implementation pathway.
Speakers:
Julieta Moradei, Director of Innovation, Reeves Young
Sarah Derdowski, Group Manager, Innovation & Entreprenuership, National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR)
Evan Rabb, Program Controller, National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR)
Stacey Rothgeb, Strategy Lead, Buildings and Industrial Energy Innovation Center (BIEIC), NLR
Networking Break | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Demo Day Winner Announcement & Network Leaders Recognition
Panel: From Innovation Theater to Real Change: How AEC Leaders Make New Tech Stick | Thursday, November 19, 2026
This session explores what it really takes to move new technology from demos and pilots into everyday practice across the built environment. AEC leaders including contractors, owners, technology providers, consultants, and investors will discuss how they prioritize use cases, design meaningful pilots, align incentives, and manage change so tools are actually adopted rather than shelved. Attendees will leave with practical frameworks and examples they can use to turn innovation theater into durable, scaled impact inside their own organizations.
Speakers:
Julide Bozoglu, Director of Technology, Goettsch Partners
Nick Deraney, Venture Manager, Saint-Gobain
Jonathan Loring, Director, Technology Consulting, Wipfli
Anthony Offak, Senior Technology Specialist, Walbridge
Roundtable Sessions | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Our roundtable sessions are designed to break down silos across the AEC technology ecosystem and create direct, small-group conversations between the stakeholders driving innovation and adoption. Each table focuses on a critical lens of emerging technology, spanning capital, deployment, and product strategy:
VC Roundtable (The Forum): Capital, deal flow, and what investors are prioritizing in the next wave of AEC innovation
Speakers:
Varad Mohod, Investor, Zacua Ventures
Pete Carroll, Partner, Jump Capital
CVC Roundtable (The Forum): How corporates are partnering with startups to drive strategic advantage and accelerate adoption
Speakers:
Ben Price, Investment Lead, WND, DPR Construction
Ross Bosn, Managing Director, UFP Industries
General Contractor Roundtable (Hub East): Field-level implementation, change management, and scaling new technologies across projects
Speakers:
Paul Jacob, Senior Business Applications Manager, Consigli Construction
Alison Hart, Sr Manager, Project Solutions, Mortenson
Tech Provider Roundtable (Hub East): Product development, interoperability, and building within the broader construction tech ecosystem
Speakers:
Kai Horan, Head of Product Strategy & Design, Trimble
Marisa Kelly, Senior Strategy Manager, Autodesk
Each attendee will select two roundtables to join and participate in two 30-minute, highly interactive sessions.
NOTE: You do not need to belong to a specific category to join a given table. Some of the most valuable insights come from cross-perspective dialogue, such as investors hearing directly from contractors, startups learning from corporate buyers, and operators understanding how capital is shaping innovation. These sessions are intentionally structured to encourage that exchange and surface practical, real-world insights that rarely emerge in traditional panels.
Closing Remarks | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Closing Reception & Network Leaders Recognition | Thursday, November 19, 2026
Join us for the AEC Emerging Tech closing reception, sponsored by UFP Ventures.
At this time, we'll also recognize the 2026 Network Leaders Top 40, which celebrate the individuals who have made a lasting impact on the BuiltWorlds community over the past year.
Member Registration
Please use the form below to register yourself and your colleagues. The contact information section will be auto-populated based on your login information. Click “Add Ticket” to register either yourself and colleagues for the event. When you have entered the information for all tickets, please click “Submit Order” to complete the registration. You will receive a confirmation email with a ticket number. If you experience issues, please reach out to info@builtworlds.com for assistance. Thank you!
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