Emma Hendry, Tim Swanson, Hassan Albalawi on Why BuiltWorlds and the BuiltWorlds Summit

On the eve of this week’s BuiltWorlds Summit, we asked three of last year’s speakers, Emma Hendry, CEO of Melbourne, Australia-based Hendry Group, Tim Swanson,  Chief Design Officer of Chicago-based Skender, and Hassan Albalawi, PhD, Founder and CEO of Dubai-based WakeCap to explain in their own words what draws them to BuiltWorlds, the Network, the Summit, and the Conversations. Below are their interviews.

Since 2014, BuiltWorlds has leveraged digital media to reach across silos and around the world to bring the industry closer together to help us all learn from each other in the broadest possible sense. We have been firm in the belief, from day one, that the industry’s fragmentation and silos have been a primary source of the industry’s productivity and quality challenges, and we have been committed to making it easier for people to get to know one another across the ecosystem, to learn from each other, and to collaborate toward a better whole. But, again, don’t take our word for it. Take theirs….

Emma Hendry, CEO, Hendry Group

Hendry Group is a Melbourne, Australia-based built form advisory firm, specializing in statutory compliance, risk mitigation, and asset optimization, serving both the traditional as well as the more innovative prop tech sectors. At the 2019 Summit, Emma joined, Hassan Albalawi, CEO, WakeCap, and Dominic Wilson, CEO, PiLabs in offering a perspective on the BuiltWorlds conversation in other regions around the world.

Tim Swanson, Chief Design Officer, Skender

Skender is a just over 60 year-old construction company that has pivoted to being a fully integrated design, manufacturing, and construction company. At the 2019 Summit, Tim Swanson joined Chris Diiorio, CEO, ENGWorks, Katherine Darnstadt, Founder, Latent Design, and Bradley Lukanic, CEO, CannonDesign for a discussion on optimizing digital design in today’s world.

Hassan Albalawi, PhD, CEO and Founder, WakeCap

WakeCap is an IoT-based solution that connects sites, connects workers and materials and helps improve the safety and the productivity of the site. He joined Emma on our Global Perspectives session at last year’s Summit. We won’t have a Global Perspective session at this year’s Summit. However, on the strength of the growing involvement of people like Hassan and Emma, last year, we also launched a BuiltWorlds Global Summit. We’ll have an analyst call preview of this discussion in a few weeks, and beyond this year’s US Summit, we hope people will look forward to learning from and connecting with people in regions around the world as we look to our second global Summit this fall.

Representing different segments of the industry, from different regions of the world, and with different perspectives, the come together to provide all with a more complete picture of our Buildings and Infrastructure Industry, offering new insights, fresh ideas, and clearer insights into our world to come. That is BuiltWorlds. We hope, as always, you’ll find valuable insights from the conversation.