Autodesk University 2017: The future of construction technology is collaborative!
MORE. BETTER. LESS.
These keywords sum up the Autodesk University (AU) 2017 opening keynote in Las Vegas. How automation can help us to perform more, do it better, and accomplish more with less was one of the main subjects of Autodesk’s President and CEO Andrew Anagnost’s talk and of the event as a whole. With more than 850 classes and activities as well as over 1000 speakers from the AEC, Design and Manufacturing industry, AU offered an opportunity to explore, learn and experience the technology that will shape “The Future Of Making Things.” We were happy to participate and join most of the fun and the productive conversations all week. Here a quick reflection on what we have experienced and learned during this impressive event.
A day before the official Autodesk University event started, Autodesk organized their other two big conferences simultaneously: The Forge DevCon and Connect & Construct Summit. We had a whole lot to do at both events, so we were glad that we decided to attend with five members of our team who could split up and make sure we took advantage of all events, shows, talks, workshops, JobWalks, as well as representing HoloBuilder at our booth.
Forge DevCon
The Forge DevCon is Autodesk’s developer conference that helps the ecosystem to understand and utilize their cloud platform. It was the most technical event of the week, but attending it was certainly one of the highlights for us as we were finally able to announce our Partnership with Autodesk and the Forge Platform. HoloBuilder got mentioned during countless presentations, classes, and conversations. During a busy day at our DevCon booth, we spoke with an amazing group of CTOs of large general contractors, design firms, architects as well as founders of smaller startup companies to discuss our collaboration with Autodesk.
We always like to show off our “nerdy” side and present our deep technology stack. The best person to answer all the keen technical questions was Marx (see the picture above), HoloBuilder’s leading developer who was responsible for the Autodesk integration. So we flew him in all the way from Germany. Marx had a blast sharing how fun it was to work with the Autodesk team from around the world to build a meaningful integration that will help to bridge BIM 360 Docs and Field with HoloBuilder for many of our joined customers. “There could not have been a better and more passionate team than the BIM 360 crew to work with to make this integration happen,” Marx told everyone who was considering to also join the Forge DevCon community.
Connect & Construct Summit
At the Connect & Construct Summit, the day started with great presentations and insights, two of which really stood out to us. The first one was “Choosing the Right Jobsite Technology” by David Epps from Winter Construction. David offered very tangible advice on how to get started when looking into tech for the site. His quick win formula highlighted these five steps:
- Go to conferences to keep up to speed with what is going on
- You see a lot of stuff out there, don’t be tempted to buy everything
- Check out online forums to research the different products that you are looking for
- Actively create a plan to trial a pilot project, develop a workflow and enforce standards
- Rent or outsource expensive tech until you are certain that you can handle it yourself
Another awesome presentation was given by Nicholas Bagatelos from Architectural Glass Systems. Nicholas journey how he and his brother made their way into lean construction and were open to innovate within a very traditional industry was highly inspiring. His main takeaways that he embraced more than 12 years ago that helped him grow is company significantly year over year were:
- Adopt the latest tools for design, engineering, and communication within the industry
- Set a lean strategy and create processes and procedures for your company
Nicholas’ story set the scene for a whole week of learning and embracing innovation.
A very hands-on highlight of Connect & Construct was the “Building the Workflows of the Future” partnering workshop that aimed to find the most pressing issues within construction and to share ideas on how we can overcome them. The big topics that summarize the discussion around our table were: Lack of trust, risk and the learning curve of doing something new, contracts, security, collaboration, transparency, insight, and IP. Here a picture of our group’s post-it notes (blue post-its represent negative attributes, red post-its indicate positive attributes):
Autodesk University is finally open!
On Tuesday Morning, AU officially kicked off. Mo, our CEO, was asked to join the BIM 360 crew for a panel discussion featuring our new integration and partnership with Autodesk’s construction management platform. It was a pleasure and privilege to have joined the panel and being amongst the first integrations on the Forge platform for BIM 360!
“Collaboration amongst all major players in the industry is the answer. The more integrations we construction tech companies manage to build amongst ourselves, the fewer data silos we create and the more successful our customers and the industry will be. We have the responsibility to collaborate in the interest of the industry as a whole! I see today’s partnership announcement as a big step in the right direction” — Mostafa Akbari, CEO & Founder of HoloBuilder
Check out our blog post “No more Issues with Issues” to learn more about our new Autodesk/HoloBuilder product partnership and understand what the integration can do for you.
The Hub was where it all came together. Located at the center of all event locations The Hub was the place where we could relax, hold meetings with several of our cherished customers, and meet new people during the many social events. The Hub’s great atmosphere and music accompanied by cold drinks was a fantastic combination. Our team joined the crowd on many occasions to connect with a ton of passionate and like-minded professionals who want to improve the way we make things in the future. We are sure you’d have loved it, too!
During AU, the most buzzing and active spot was the Exhibit Hall. Exhibitors showed off the latest and greatest technology to the more than 10,000 enthusiastic visitors from all over the world. Arguably the most sci-fi like exhibit was the rLoop, which is a hyperloop design that can achieve static levitation.
One of the most hands-on experiences in the area of manufacturing was “The Factory,” giving attendees the opportunity to experience the entire manufacturing process of a portable powered speaker, from concept to finished product (that even could be taken home!).
We could continue talking about the endless number of amazing products and ideas we have seen for hours, but why not simply go for a virtual walk throughout the exhibit hall for yourself with our 360° Tour?
We were Autodesk University’s official tour and TimeTravel provider to capture and share the conference’s space development over time and share it with all attendees. Here a link to AU’s official daily updates website where they shared the daily brief during AU including our HoloBuilder project: http://au.autodesk.com/au-online/las-vegas-daily-highlights
The Exhibit Hall was where we also had our booth. C614 was our “Kingdom” as we referred to it. During the three days, we have spoken with about 500 to 600 AU attendees who were full of passion and willing to improve the way we do things within the construction industry.
Here a quick picture that I took just after building up the booth (be sure it didn’t look as organized during the whole conference － usually it was buzzing and messy, as you might image from the second picture below):
To our amazement and great pleasure, we learned that almost everyone had already heard or was already using simple handheld 360° cameras for their construction documentation. We were full of pride as we have introduced these handy devices with an efficient workflow to the construction industry. It was the most rewarding experience after working hard to promote and drive the use of 360 documentation since winning Ricoh’s International Theta Developer contest in 2015.
Our friend Rob McKinney (@ConAppGuru) from the ConTechCrew also came by to do a booth interview with our CEO Mo Akbari (we will share the interview as soon as it goes live!). Rob, we looooove your style!
Here also a link to the direct location of our booth within the 360° AU HoloBuilder Project.
Back to business: HoloBuilder was in the center of the Construction Keynote presentation’s integration slide. Here’s a picture that our colleague Nic was able to snap during Thursday’s Keynote showing our BIM 360 Field sheet integration:
There were many reasons to celebrate if you visited this year’s AU, from the first official HoloBuilder integration with BIM 360 Field, to the most amount of construction focused attendees at an AU ever. The week was a complete success for the organizers, for us exhibitors, and for the many attendees who we have spoken with.
To make the celebration even easier, the AU crew spoiled us all with quite a few amazing parties. The week’s party menu kicked off with a Hard Hat Party at the Tao Nightclub on Monday night where you’d know every second person from the industry.
Tuesday night’s highlight included a women in construction event called “Women at AU Networking Reception” that Elissa and Mayra, our two Civil Engineers in the team joined. The event featured a panel discussion centered around how we can inspire young women and girls to pursue a career in engineering and construction.
“It was encouraging to meet other women in the industry. The community did not only share their own experience but also looked for opportunities on how to inspire other women to join this fascinating industry!” — Mayra & Elissa from the HoloBuilder Team
Last but not least the highlight of the nightlife was Wednesday’s block party for which the AU crew rented many of the bars, clubs, and restaurants inside the Venetian and the Palazzo Hotel. If you ever consider attending AU, be sure to join the Wednesday night party, it’s a must. You never know where the night will take you!
All in all, we want to thank the organizers of Autodesk University for the fantastic event that they put together, our many customers that took the time to find and meet us in person, as well as our fantastic team to spread good spirit and energy during the intense conference week.
We hope we could give you a fair overview of what it was like to attend Autodesk University. In case you didn’t make it this year, be sure to come next year and meet us- we will surely be there again!
Your HoloBuilder Team from Las Vegas!
UPDATE:
Check out the video from the ConTech Roadshow on December 5 in Oakland, in which our CEO Mostafa Mo Akbari talks about Autodesk University and our integration:
Are you interested in 360° Reality Capturing for construction teams and digitalization of your construction sites? We would love to see you at HoloBuilder.com!
And should you have any questions, comments, or topics that we should feature, just drop us a line at support@holobuilder.com or leave a comment here. And if you liked this article, leave us some 👏s! Thank you 🙂
