Thoughts on the 2011 Middle East BIM Conference

Written by our MEP BIM Manager, Charles:

Last week I attended the ‘First Annual Conference in Middle East Building Information Modeling (BIM) (Vision, Strategy and Implementation)’ at the CERT Technology Park in Abu Dhabi. The event was under the patronage and presence of His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak al Nahayan, theMinister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, United Arab Emirates Chancellor, Higher College of Technology, and organized by the Center for Integrated Facility Engineering (CIFE) from Stanford University, Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), Projacs International, and the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT).

CIFE (http://cife.stanford.edu/) is one of top resources of leading research and application of BIM related technologies, processes and theories, so to have them and some of their partners here in the UAE to present, discuss and share their knowledge with the local market was great. The cutting-edge concepts they develop at CIFE, and test with their partner members is at the forefront of the industry and can bring huge positive change and impact to the AEC industry when implemented successfully.

It will be some time before these ideas are successfully implemented by the majority of companies at all levels of design, documentation, construction, operation and management. Organizations like CIFE will be strong influences on the way the early adopters and innovators of the technologies in the industry carve out a niche in their market, leverage the skills and technology and really benefit from this before the everyday company, or user of BIM follows suit. This is where I see iTech having the greatest impact on serving the local MENA market. We want to be the link between the academia and high level research that is going on at places like CIFE, Penn State, SOMs Blackbox and integrate that into the practices that are willing to adopt change, so that the companies in the region, and around the world can benefit from these new and innovative technologies.

It was great to hear the wise and visionary words of His Excellency and how he sees the conference, the technology and the people in the industry and how they fit into the larger picture of smart, sustained, efficient and beneficial development in the country that he has devoted his life to here in the UAE.  You can tell that he is very knowledgeable about the aspects of the technology and industry, and he can see the benefit it can and does bring to the UAE and their rapid development. This shows that he truly believes in what we as an industry are doing. His insight gave a new perspective to the bigger picture of what BIM and our work can provide to those outside of our companies and how it affects everybody in the country. His knowledge and involvement is very motivating for a small, local based solutions provider in the UAE like iTech. It is people like him, along with other government officials, property owners, policy makers and private clients that need to understand the benefits of what we are doing and what we can provide to not only them, but to the country and world as a whole through our innovative and new technology and processes.

Overall the conference was great, but I feel like it was missing something. A purpose?  I did not feel a strong sell from the companies presenting, more of an awareness campaign if you will. From CIFE standpoint I see them as the vehicle to spread the word and latest ideas in the BIM world and generally raise awareness, and in this case organizing the event because of their involvement with the partner companies in the region. There was no real transfer of knowledge of their work to the local parties here that attended that could be applied to their practices. For the local partners of the event I could not tell if they were trying to teach the audience what BIM is, show the world what they have developed and used, to generate business and sell services, or to showcase how they have used the technology on local projects. For the outside companies that presented I am assuming they were just here to show the capabilities of BIM and how they have successfully used the technology to their benefit in their home countries on their projects. The presentations were very informative and a lot could be learned from them, but there was no formal knowledge transfer so it just left the crowd with an idea of what could be done, but no starting point on how to do it. If somebody was interested in doing the same things in the region are they supposed to work with the presenting company, figure it out on their own hire a local consultant?

It was the first time in the UAE that I have felt like there was a wealth of knowledge and experience directly related to BIM that I and those around me could benefit from. Most of the time at conferences, expos and meetings you are speaking to people who do not know much about BIM (if anything). A large part of our job for the foreseeable future will be education on the topic, but at this event you knew for the most part the people around you either knew BIM extremely well and you wanted to pick their brain, or were interested in learning more because they understand the basics of the technology and know they can benefit. Call me a nerd, but I get excited when I can have an intelligent conversation with somebody about the technology and its potential, especially applied to the region. So to have two days of meeting and discussing the real benefits of BIM and how we use it was great. As a sponsor we had a small booth setup to speak with people in the region in need of technology consulting and

BIM solutions, so it was good for us to speak with the people here locally that are interested and need guidance.

I feel like the structure of the event should be changed to target specific needs of those coming to present, as well as those attending. It could be broken into two session (one per day), with one day covering a more introductory, ‘What is BIM and how is it used, what are the latest applications’, and the second day could be case studies and examples, ones the relate directly to those in attendance. This way the people who are not familiar with the technology and industry could target a learning session day one, get the base knowledge, and then the second day see how it could directly benefit them through learning about projects in the region, or applicable to them.

I have wanted to organize a BIM event here locally for some time now, and I was too slow acting on my plan and got beat to it. The event was a great foundation to build on in the future, and I do hope CIFE and those involved plan on making it a regular event. For those of us here in the Middle East working in the industry it is hard to stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest ideas and innovations coming from the US where the technology is being used more frequently and the envelope is being pushed. It can create a great synergy that we can feed off of and get direct contact and exposure to those in the US doing the new things, while we are on the ground here creating our own new processes and innovations that we need to deliver the projects of the scale that we have here.