Winners of the BIM Africa Innovation Award 2021

The Winners of the BIM Africa Innovation Awards 2021 were announced at the Awards Ceremony held on Tuesday, November 2 2021.

Academic Rising Star: Opeoluwa Akinradewo

Opeoluwa won the 2015 edition of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) Research Conference Student Essay Writing and Presentation competition which registered participation of students across the different higher institutions offering Quantity Surveying in Nigeria. After working with the Ogun State government in one of her parastatals for two years, He resigned to pursue his M.Tech degree in Quantity Surveying at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. The programme he completed in 13months with distinction (Summa cum laude). During this period, he had 19 publications in peer-reviewed conferences and journals. He is a young researcher who is gradually gaining ground in built environment and construction research. He is completing his PhD programme in Construction Management at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Automation Awards: Abdallah Hazem

Abdallah Hazem is an experienced urban planner with a demonstrated history of working in the professional GIS and software industry, and currently working with Khatib & Alami as a Lead Solutions & Products Analyst. Abdallah is a strong community and social services specialist who holds a BA in Urban and Regional Planning from Cairo University and a Certified Professional in Data Science & Data Analyst from Harvard. He is awarded the Automation Awards for his deployment on 2D & 3D Building prediction for Smart Cities.

Best Woman in African Construction – Prof. Abimbola Windapo

Prof. Windapo is the first female Professor of Construction Management in South Africa and Nigeria. She is the leader of the Construction Business Management Research Group and the editor of the Journal of Construction Business and Management (JCBM). She is a dynamic scholar with tremendous impact in teaching, research, and society. She has demonstrated leadership in the industry and the society through her research and various scholarship and successfully supervised 7 PhD students and more than 10 students for Masters in the department of Construction Economics and Management.

Green Hat Award – Shuaib Yunos

Shuaib is an influential industry thought leader and no stranger across the African Continent and around the world, with many prestigious international achievements. He is the only professional selected from the entire African Continent to present at Autodesk University 2020 from +2400 applications across 54 Countries. Shuaib has a great passion for design, infrastructure & technology, and his passion has gained him recognition as the Champion of BIM for Civil Infrastructure in Africa & the world over. Shuaib is a BIM Technical Specialist in Civil Infrastructure & Mining at Baker Baynes in South Africa. He is affiliated with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) & the South African Institute of Civil Engineers (SAICE). At Baker Baynes, he is involved in numerous projects involving BIM for Civil Infrastructure, GIS, Reality Capture/Scan-to-BIM, as well as VR & Visualisation. By harnessing the power of BIM, engineering practicality, technical ingenuity, and legislation, Shuaib hopes to spur on digital transformation within the Civil Infrastructure Industry in Africa and around the globe, as well as inspire fellow design professionals to give off their best and have fun while doing it!

Innovation in Built Environment – Prodesign Engineering Consultants Ltd

Prodesign is a firm of consulting engineers who make complex construction projects easy to design, build and operate. They design buildings that are certified green, which consume less energy, and which cost less to operate and maintain. This innovation-driven firm began its journey in BIM back in 2007, and today they lead in this field. Through research and development, they have been able to connect BIM to augmented and virtual reality, helping designers, clients, and contractors to build faster and cheaper. They have customised BIM coordination tools to enhance collaboration among design teams, resolving problems before it goes to the site, saving client time and money. Today, their R&D team are continuing to explore BIM and develop new tools to improve the construction industry in Mauritius and Africa.

Institutional Award – EPE SPA BEREG

Le Bureau d’Etudes de Recherches et d’Engineering Général (BEREG) a pour missions les études techniques tout corps d’état, les missions de contrôles et le suivit de validation des plans, l’expertise et l’étude de renforcement des ouvrages. En accord avec les directives du Ministère de l’Habitat, de l’Urbanisme et de la ville (MHUV) ainsi que les orientations du groupe de recherche et d’engineering, le BEREG, certifié ISO 9001/2015, s’est lancé dans le process du Building Information Modeling (BIM) en 2018. C’est dans ce contexte que le bureau a été félicité par le directeur du centre de formation et de certification international ProdDesign Trainning, comme son premier contractant et partenaire MBIM pour la qualité des spécifications en rapport avec la mission rendue de formulation d’exigences pour la sélection d’un organisme qui portera la formation et le support des process BIM, considéré comme la première mission pilote en Algérie. BEREG est le seul bureau études technique d’état algérien à avoir déployé le BIM avec 30 employés certifiés internationalement dans tous les outils métiers BIM (Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, Revit MEP et Civil 3D) par le centre de certification international Certiport Authorized Testing Center additionnant ainsi aux 10 personnes déjà certifiée en Algérie ce qui fait totaliser à 40 le nombre de personnes certifiées nationalement, positionnant l’Algérie à la cinquième place Africaine et le BEREG comme première entité gouvernementale BIM.
Grâce au BEREG et son initiative d’implémenter le BIM, le MHUV s’est lancé dans le processus de généraliser l’utilisation du BIM pour les futures conceptions architecturales. Enfin, l’Algérie a été choisie parmi 4 pays africains (Afrique du Sud, Nigéria et Ethiopie) pour être inclue dans le Rapport Afrique BIM 2020, soulignant ainsi ses initiatives variées dans la transition numérique du secteur du bâtiment en Afrique

Lifestyle & Asset Management Awards – DATA PM

DATA PM is among the first African startups to develop an Open BIM MOM (Management Operation Maintenance) software. The firm integrated BIM Operation and Management for local facility management companies in Tunisia and started to export their products. The firm has also developed an automatic IFC file checker helping users to audit their files before using the platform.

Outstanding Startup Awards – TEA Engineering Services

TEA Engineering Services (TEAserv) company was established in 2019 as a merger between two companies. By applying the new technology in Construction such as BIM technology, Digital Twins, Automation Workflow, TEAserv was awarded 2nd place as BIM Specialist of the Year 2020 at the international BIM Awards 2020 organized in the UK by Bimshowlive. TEAserv is currently one of the most trusted Autodesk Developers Worldwide to provide the automation tools the market needs to save time and mitigate the time consuming due to the plug-ins and the add-ins, which is transforming the repetitive tasks into automated tasks and delivering Generative Design options the minimize the human errors. TEAserv also is using automated Shop Drawings tools to support the construction companies in the fast-track projects designed especially for the construction companies and considering the project budget and time limitation. TEAserv and tycoon IBM are now business partners in the facility management, the partnership started two (2) years ago. TEAserv is providing and supporting the new market trends in the emerging facility management scope that aims to ensure a smooth operation of the new projects.

Research Excellence Award – Dr Timothy Olawumi

Dr Timothy Olawumi is an Assistant Professor/Lecturer at the School of Engineering and the Built Environment, Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom. He has previously worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Chinese National Engineering Research Centre for Steel Construction (CNERC) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. He also has work experience as an academic and construction professional in Nigeria at the Federal University of Technology Akure and some local and multi-national construction companies. He worked on some projects in Nigeria, including a US$4 million World Bank-funded bridge construction and highway rehabilitation project. He obtained a PhD in Construction Engineering and Management from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in year 2020.  He is an RICS Chartered Surveyor and a member of the Hong Kong Green Building Council and Hong Kong Institute of Project Management. He is also on the Editorial Board of 4 reputable journals, three of which are SCI-indexed. He has authored 38 papers with over 1200 citations. He has also received research-based awards from the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB HK) in 2018 and the Australian Institute of Building in 2019. In research grants, he has secured in excess of £172,000 (in UK pounds) from three competitive grants. He is generally interested in applying digital technologies (BIM, blockchain, cloud-based systems), sustainability, and data-driven techniques in construction management and engineering issues.