A quarter-century of digital transformation, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has gotten us to this point. At this point data has become more and more extensive, diverse and valuable. Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase in companies that besides collecting data, also refine and process it to extract added value that can be used to improve their businesses. Just like oil, data without being refined, has not much value.
This is also true in the Construction Industry. Even though the industry is often seen as one of the least digitized in the work, it is also the biggest industry in the world, representing 13 percent of the global GDP, which means that the industry will, potentially, be one of the industries to attain some of the biggest benefits in this new age, if it embraces new technologies and workflows.
At Sweco, we strongly believe that a data driven culture which focus on delivering business value is one of the key factors to strengthen our decentralized business organization and the deliveries we offer to our clients.
We are also aware to make a meaningful change to the business environment, where the benefits of data driven strategies could create positive impacts, requires a mass adoption of these so called, new technologies and workflows. This change is not achieved by a single company or country, but rather a combined effort between several entities within the Built Environment.
This is the reason that Sweco partnered with RIL- Finnish Association of Civil Engineers, for the 3rd consecutive year, to organize the AI in AEC conferences. The last conference, the 2021 edition, gathered 57 speakers and attracted participants from 30 countries. This conference aims to showcase examples where Data Driven technologies are used in the Construction Industry, create awareness for the topic, and hopefully inspire some of the people/companies that have not started their data driven journey to start it.
The 3rd edition of the AI in AEC conference will be held during 23-24 March 2022. Join us in this journey by attending the conference and or presenting your data driven workflow, abstract submissions to present in the conference are open until 29 October here.
Ricardo Farinha, Director of Technology, Sweco