TechFest 2018

This year CDBB was pleased to sponsor the New Civil Engineer TechFest 2018. Held in the heart of London this event aimed to provide a forum for civil engineers to debate the industry’s biggest tech challenges, stimulate opportunities to further innovation. It also provided a forum for rewarding great innovations that are shaping the industry with a series of awards announced in an award ceremony at the end of the day.

Delegates this year were able to hear firstly from Hamid Mughal, who is the Director of Global Manufacturing at Rolls Royce, who spoke about fostering innovation and embracing technology, focusing on the cultural challenges to innovation. This was followed by a panel with excellent representatives from Transport for London, Tideway London and the National Infrastructure Commission, who gave very interesting responses to the issues around how major industry bodies can help drive collaboration, culture and change across the industry.

There followed a unique set of live judging hubs running simultaneously which aimed at recognising companies, projects or teams that are developing innovations, technologies, apps or technology led-products that are driving best practice in infrastructure design, delivery and operation with each category focusing on a specific industry change initiative. 

Simultaneously there was also a PechaKucha style session run for five shortlisted entries from Start-up of the Year Award category, who pitched their innovations live to the audience. The audience's feedback was combined with judges' scoring to determine the winning Start-up to be 3D Repro (@3DRepo)

During the day of the event also hosted some Fringe cafés and also a Graduate Challenge. The graduate teams were tasked with a problem to solve and worked throughout the day towards a solution.  The winning team was Mott MacDonald and Balfour Beatty.(@MottMacDonald @balfourbeatty @BentleyUKI)

The afternoon keynote proved very popular, giving a lively presentation on the future trends in technologies we can expect to be facing such as Emotive AI, Immersive Reality and Bio-Securiy and how these can impact the engineering sector. Shivvy Jervis, is an award-winning Futurist, and one of Europe's Top 30 Women in Digital, and the delegates found these visions inspiring.

The afternoon session concluded with a fascinating NCE’s Accelerator, a new initiative powered by Costain, where five shortlisted SME's presented their innovative ideas to delegates. The winning company was Co-You, a company that aims to capture carbon from construction packaging.

The evening awards ceremony was a great way to bring together the results of the day's judging and an enjoyable time was had by all. As well as the awards for the live judging categories being presented, CDBB also sponsored the Judges Supreme Award: Digitisation for digital built Britain.

This flagship award recognised the individual, company, research or project team that is doing most to drive the industry forward through technology adoption, with specific references with the challenges set out in Digital Built Britain, the government’s strategy for moving the industry beyond BIM Level 2. Professor Andy Neely, Director for the Centre for Digital Built Britain and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations was delighted to present this award to the winning team, who were Gaist Solutions (@Gaistsolutions), for their innovation and role at the forefront of built environment digitisation.

Other winners announced during the award ceremony are shown below:

• Best Use of Technology: Carbon Reduction Award - Royal HaskoningDHV
• Technology Provider of the Year Award - @DataScopeSystem 
• Technology Driving Whole Life Performance Award - @TfL Engineering in partnership with @JRDynamics 
• Environmental Impact Award - @ArupGroup
• Innovation of the Year: Transport Systems - @MattestSouth
• Innovation of the Year: Water Systems Award - @wessexwater
• Innovation of the Year: Energy Systems Award - @TaylorWoodrow1  VCUK_Building
• Research Development: Creating the Future Award - @imperialcollege
• Research Impact: Application in the Industry Award - Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction, @Cambridge_Uni , Geocisa, Dragados, @TfL
• Best Use of Technology: Health, Safety & Wellbeing Award - @gallifordtry and 360safeVR
• Best Use of Technology: Driving efficiency through design Award - @ramboll_uk
• Best Use of Technology: Productivity in Delivery - @DataScopeSystem
• Best Use of Technology: Enabling Smart Infrastructure Award - @VALERANN_LTD

For more programme details and outputs please go to the NCE TechFest website.