BuiltWorlds’ 2023 Construction Tech Conference had its main sessions kick off on Wednesday, July 19, which was followed by BuiltWorlds announcing the 2023 Digital Leaders alongside a reception to end the day.This Chicago conference hosts leading tech adopters, mature solution providers, upcoming tech solutions, and more industry players to unpack the current pulse of trends among the built world. This intentionally curated environment takes a holistic look at how technology is impacting the way that we build today–from pre-construction to the systematic dismantling of a building. The conference was hosted in the historic Fulton Market district at the 19-story 280-foot 333 North Green Street Tower.
Fostering Innovation: Building a People-First Culture to Maximize the Potential of Technology
Featuring Keynote Speaker: Anita Woolley Nelson, Chief Strategy Officer, Skanska USA Building
“Ultimately, the biggest challenge that we have is that we are in a certainty business. When we talk about what we are most afraid of - we are most afraid of losing control. We are most afraid of being uncertain when we sit down with that client. We are thinking about adding something to the burden of the people in the field. We don't want to make their jobs harder and ultimately we don’t want to spend more money. But at the same time when we think about all those failures, those are the failures that we have to make a little bit of room for."
-Anita Woolley Nelson, Skanska USA Building
Can You Know Your Project Will Succeed Before it Even Begins?
Featuring Speakers: Morgan Hays, Sr. VP Product Management, ALICE Technologies; Steve Dell'Orto, Founder & CEO, ConCntric; and Donald McMurtrey, Construction Technology Manager, Granite Construction
““One of the best ways to get confidence that you’re going to deliver is by trying different options, trying different sequences, trying different sequence levels, trying different timing for material delivery and getting that insight into the thousands of potential ways that you can driver on a project is the best way that you can manage risk in a proactive way."
-Morgan Hays, ALICE Technologies
Is Technology Finally Disrupting Scheduling?
Featuring Speakers: Michael Pink, CEO, SmartPM; Dev Amratia, Co-Founder & CEO, nPlan; and Ricardo Nolasco, Director of Scheduling, McKissack & McKissack
“It allows the team to have more and complete visibility on the issues of the project. And early, not in a few months when all hell is breaking loose, but very early. When you’re in foundation you can tell what is going to happen during finishes that you know what that might be an issue. Having that visibility to see those issues and to be able to act and mitigate properly, efficiently and cheaply. It’s a lot easier to mitigate a project when you’re very early on rather than having to get more crew or work overtime or work weekends in order to mitigate. I think visibility of upcoming possible issues and reducing risks is something that is helping us."
-Ricardo Nolasco, McKissack & McKissack
Making Life Easier for the Bid Team
Featuring Speakers: Patrick Murphy, CEO & Founder, Togal.AI; and Leah Royalty, Construction Technology Specialist, Dysruptek
“You need consistent training data to get an accurate response. That’s traditionally been very difficult in construction because the information is completely fragmented and we all think we have top secret information and no shares anything and we then we never end up doing anything with it. So getting the data and then labeling it was really difficult and it took us years to do. But with generative AI, it’s a whole new world. One of the key differences with generative AI is that you need a lot less training data and it can take data that’s apples and oranges and process it in a unique way."
-Patrick Murphy, Togal.AI
The Data Boom: Why Doing Data Analytics Better is Critical
Featuring Speakers: Angus Frost, Management Consultant, Burger Consulting Group; Brad Barth, Chief Product Office, InEight; and Mehdi Nourbakhsh, CEO, YegaTech
“There’s a big chasm with some of the executives in the industry. We need to take smaller steps to closing that chasm by experimenting and looking at how we can unsilo that data but the starting point always has to be what is the business question."
-Mehdi Nourbakhsh, YegaTech
Movements in FinTech: Payments in a Cash-Poor Industry
Featuring Speakers: Jerry Horani, Chief Technology Office, VCC; and Gregg Lund, Founder & CEO, Struxtion
Does BIM Need a Re-Brand?
Featuring Speakers: Danielle Dy Buncio, CEO & Founder, VIATechnik; Jack Moran, Director of VDC & Integrated Services, Consigli Construction; James Holt, BIM Manager, Clune Construction; and Phil Lazarus, Head of VDC Americas, LendLease
“An idea that our clients respond very strongly towards is ‘how do we make quality, high velocity, decisions?’ In the construction industry, pretty much everything that we are doing is a decision. Construction has a planning problem but it also has a reaction problem. When changes are introduced, how do we still make better, faster decisions so that we can drive real outcomes?"
-Danielle Dy Buncio, VIATechnik
The Next Frontier of Project Management Technology
Featuring Speakers: Matthew Hudelson, Founder, Inertia Systems; Nick Decker, Construction Practice Lead, Egnyte; and Di-Ann Eisnor, CEO, Crews by Core
“You all know in tech MVP right, it’s supposed to be a minimum viable product, well guess what, in Construction Tech it’s a maximum viable product. So if you want to be a new player entering this space, it takes longer than you think, you have to outperform over and over again. For the startups coming in now this is my advice, raise a lot more money than you think you need. You're not going to raise a couple million dollars and be successful."
-Di-Ann Eisnor, Crews by Core
2023 Digital Leaders Announcement
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