CIB student chapter hosts Collective Sensemaking:First in a series of global fireside chats
Friday 14th August 2020, 17.00 – 18:00 AEST
The CIB Student Chapter at Western Sydney University in association with the Centre for Smart ModernConstruction hosted the first in a series of live streamed fireside chats called ‘Collective Sensemaking’ on
the theme ‘the Great Reset – Resilience through Innovation’. The pandemic is being considered as awatershed moment for the digital transformation of businesses and the world is now ever more reliant on
harnessing the power of digital models and collective intelligence to create new value and experiences.
The key highlights from the discussion:•••••

In the Great Reset, the part that innovation needs to play is managing the trade-off between theresilience of our systems to vulnerability and the efficiency of our systems.
In the physical world, the world might potentially see changes in patterns of what people want outof urban space, in the digital space, there will arise a lot of tension between privacy demands andsocial good demands with a focus on ‘trust’ enabled through technology where Blockchain willemerge as a key technology.
The pandemic has made AEC organisations question their deeply embedded structures and mightenable some long term systemic changes around adaptability and flexibility.
Unalloyed technological enthusiasm is not going to help us achieve our goals, knowledge sharing,collaboration and learning from practice might enable a natural evolution of the industry withrespect to digitalisation, however, some actors might still be too slow to move and end up being
completely overwhelmed by the digital revolution.
The most important skillset for future grads is to be able to train and re-learn, using the time atuniversity to not just take the right classes but to create a foundation towards becoming an agileactor.

Report by Priyadarshini Das, President and Amer Hijazi, Project Manager (Events)
Organising team - Buddhini Ginigaddara, Vice-President cum treasurer and Kasun Gunasekara, ProjectManager (Promotions), CIB Student Chapter, Western Sydney University.
To watch the recording on YouTube, click here.

The PanelFirst Panellist:
Prof Kira Matus

Prof. Kira Matus’ primary research focus is at the intersection of innovation, sustainability
science, and public policy, focusing on sustainable production-consumption systems. A
large portion of her research is on how policy interacts with the development andimplementation of "green" technologies in supply chains. She researches how policy canincentivize innovation- but also at how innovation can feed-back into policy, and when
new technologies allow for, and sometimes even demand, new approaches to policy on
the part of public, private and civil society actors. She has a PhD in Public Policy from
Harvard University, a SM in Technology and Policy from MIT, and a ScB in Chemistry fromBrown University.

Profile: Prof. Kira Matus, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Second Panellist:
Cristina Savian

Third Panellist:
Prof Mike Kagioglou

Cristina is the founder and managing director at BE-WISE, an international consultancy
firm specialised in helping start-ups and SME to scale-up and bring new technology into
the construction market. Cristina has over twenty years’ experience in the civil engineeringand technology industries and played a key role as transport manager of the Greenwich
Park venue during the London 2012 Olympic Games. She then moved to work for a
multinational leading technology company, Autodesk, covering several global roles astechnical and commercial lead across Europe and America. Cristina holds an MBA from theUniversity of Cambridge, a joint degree in Transport & Business Management fromImperial College London and UCL and a first class degree in Environmental Economics.

Profile: Cristina Savian, BE-WISE
Prof Mike Kagioglou is Dean of Engineering at Western Sydney University in Australia,
Provost of the Penrith Campus and Institutional strategy lead for the engagement of theUniversity with Europe and the UK. Prof Mike was, until recently, Dean of Art, Design andArchitecture at the University of Huddersfield and prior to that at the University of Salford
where he was the Head of the School of Built Environment. Prof Mike's career spans
Engineering, Manufacturing, Creativity, Design, Architecture and the Built Environment,engaged in inter and multi-disciplinary research at a global level. Prof Mike has taught inproduct design and development, manufacturing and production systems, leanconstruction/manufacturing/healthcare, requirements management, among othersubject areas.

Profile: Prof Mike Kagioglou, Western Sydney University
Prof Srinath Perera is the Director of the Centre for Smart Modern Construction and holds
a personal chair in Built Environment and Construction Management at the Western
Sydney University, Australia. He is a invited member of the CIB governing Board. He is aFellow of the prestigious Royal Society of New South Wales and is a fellow of the AustralianInstitute of Building (AIB). He is a chartered Quantity Surveyor and a Project Manager withmembership of both the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), and AustralianInstitute of Quantity Surveyors (AIQS). His research spans across construction informatics,
economics of sustainability, risk management, value management, life cycle costing andother areas of construction management.

Fourth Panellist:
Prof Srinath Perera

Moderator
Priyadarshini Das

Profile: Prof. Srinath Perera, Western Sydney University
Priya is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Smart Modern Construction, WesternSydney University. Her research aims at developing a capability maturity model for
construction enterprises transforming in Industry 4.0. Prior to commencing her doctoral
research, Priya worked for Indian construction giant Larsen and Toubro for over half adecade in Transportation Infrastructure Projects such as Highways, Runways, and ElevatedCorridors and had a short stint with the US-based technology-driven Construction StartUp Katerra. Her academic and professional pursuits have created the opportunity for herto understand the nuances of mega construction projects involving an array ofstakeholders leading to complex and interdependent uncertainties.

Profile: Priyadarshini Das, Western Sydney University
Amer is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Smart Modern Construction, WesternSydney University and is working on developing a methodology for integrating blockchain
with BIM for construction supply chains. Amer holds a M.Sc. from the University of theWest of England, Bristol; in BIM, Design Construction and Operation. Amer has had adecade long career in the AEC industry (UK and MENA region) focusing on making the BIM
business case. Amer has worked with ‘’Vision Network’’, Centre of Digital Built Britain(DBB), University of Cambridge on enabling AR/VR for Digital Built Britain. Amer aced all
his modules with distinction for the prestigious Oxford Blockchain Strategy program.

Moderator
Amer Hijazi

Profile: Amer Hijazi, Western Sydney University