The keynote
He set out the current state of BIM adoption in New Zealand: where the industry stands, how clients and government have shaped uptake, and what remains difficult. To give the audience the full picture, he invited Farzam Farzadi of Beca to present the industry perspective alongside him, so that the academic and professional states of BIM were presented side by side.
The session was arranged by Susana Candia Palma, who also provided simultaneous translation, and coordinated by Ricardo Chacón Mestre. A Chilean perspective was presented in the same session, which allowed the two national pictures to be compared directly.
A very interesting opportunity to exchange knowledge and see how certain implementations are rapidly becoming universal.
His account of the keynote, LinkedIn
What the exchange showed
The comparison revealed how quickly particular BIM practices are converging across very different national contexts. Chile and New Zealand differ in market size, procurement and regulation, yet the problems of interoperability, client demand and skills recur in both. For a Chilean audience building its own national BIM programme, the New Zealand experience offered both a reference and a warning about the gap between policy ambition and adoption on the ground.
His standing in the field
He serves as the academic member of BIMinNZ, the national committee that steers BIM adoption in New Zealand, and his research on BIM runs from early studies of uptake and barriers to its integration with digital twins and building performance. The keynote carried that standing abroad, at a point when Latin American universities and industries were looking for international partners in digital construction.
Why international exchange matters
BIM adoption is shaped as much by policy and procurement as by software. Countries that have required BIM on public projects, such as the United Kingdom, moved faster than those that left it to the market, and smaller economies face the added difficulty that standards and tools are often developed elsewhere. New Zealand and Chile share that position, which makes their experiences unusually useful to each other.
Exchanges of this kind also build the international relationships on which research partnerships, student mobility and joint publications depend. For AUT, a connection with a Chilean university opened a door to a region in which few New Zealand universities are active.