Digital innovators with fresh ideas for apps, software tools or digital technologies for construction are invited to showcase their ideas to the industry at a new CIOB and BRE-backed event – Accelerate to Innovate.
While digital innovation is seen as crucial to the industry’s future, innovators with fresh ideas often work in small, isolated teams and find it difficult to make headway in a fragmented industry.
Accelerate to Innovate will help selected teams speed up the process of developing their ideas and plotting a pathway to future success – while gaining valuable media exposure among the readership of Construction Manager, BIM+ and the BRE’s Building4Change.
Individuals, collaborators or groups with a prototype innovation or a well-researched premise are invited to submit a 500-word application to the Accelerate to Innovate team by Thursday 24 March.
Accelerate to Innovate builds on the success of the Dragons versus Innovators Award event last year
Teams selected by the assessment panel from this open call will join winners of the CIOB’s Innovation and Research Awards 2015, who are hoping to take their ideas from research labs or field trials to commercial roll-out.
At the event, to be held at the BRE in Watford on 19 April, a team of high-calibre “mentors” from the industry will coach teams on how to progress their ideas, technically and commercially, to gain wider take-up in the industry.
Innovators selected to participate will be paired with experienced mentors from the industry, including Rennie Chadwick, innovation and performance director at contractor Osborne, and senior representatives from the BIM Task Group and leading Tier 1 contractors.
Mentors will coach innovators on how to strengthen their proposal, and pitch their ideas to investors, backers and future clients in the construction sector.
Accelerate to Innovate will be featured in the June edition of Construction Manager, and given full coverage across the CIOB websites – at CIOB.org, construction-manager.co.uk, and bimplus.co.uk – as well as related social media channels.
It builds on the success of the Dragons versus Innovators Award event, featured in Construction Manager last year.
CIOB Innovation and Research Panel
The CIOB is also seeking expressions of interest from professionals with experience and expertise in research and/or innovation in the built environment to serve a three-year tenure on the CIOB Innovation and Research (I&R) Panel.
Members of the CIOB I&R Panel are leading figures drawn from both academia and industry. The Panel is committed to the cause of promoting innovation and research in construction; the active dissemination of best practice research and the continued promotion of innovative ways of working.
It also takes an active part in setting the research agenda and provides expert advice to the CIOB, its members and the industry at large. The Panel meets formally 2-3 times a year and consists of a core group of around 10 people with a significant voice in the industry.
If you are interested in applying for the position of Chairman or a member, please send a copy of your CV with a covering letter to Dr Chung-Chin Kao, head of innovation & research, at [email protected], by Friday 1 April 2016.
