Member spotlight: Joe Burke

Posted on Wednesday 04 December, 2024

Joe Burke is a Project Manager at Hawkins based in Tāmaki | Auckland. At this year’s NZ Building People Awards Joe took out the BCITO Emerging Leader Award and received a grant from the Institute’s Charitable Education Trust.

In his awards citation we heard about Joe’s thoughtful and collaborative leadership style, his enthusiasm and willingness to get his hands dirty, and his exception crisis management skills.

As his referee said, “Joe is one of the brightest young talents in the construction industry.”

We wanted to get to know this talented Institute member a little better, so we asked him a few questions.

Access to New Zealand’s public buildings for people with disability

Posted on Friday 29 November, 2024

A quarter of all New Zealanders have some type of disability that affects their mobility, vision, hearing and/or awareness. Nearly two-thirds of people with disability are aged 65 or older, so many of us will become a “person with disability”, or PWD, as we age.

New Zealand signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability which states that PWDs should be able to live independently and be included in the community.

Dr Claire Flemmer explains what this means for us in the construction industry, and some simple ways we can make our public buildings more inclusive. 

Farewell and thank you to Hannah Keir-Smith

Posted on Monday 25 November, 2024

The Institute is announcing that this Friday 29 November will be the last day for long-time Home Team member Hannah Nansett nee. Keir-Smith. We are sad to see Hannah go but also happy for her to be moving on to a new work challenge. Given Hannah’s nine years of mahi at the Institute we wanted to make sure we recognise her and thank her for all she’s done. It’s hard to sum up a person’s contribution in a few words but we’ve had a go.

Hannah has been at the Institute for nine years and in that time has performed just about every role in the organisation. Her contribution to the Institute, and in turn the construction industry, has been huge.

Tēnā rawa atu koe. Waimaria!
Thank you so much. Good luck!

Member Spotlight: Yu Li

Posted on Tuesday 29 October, 2024

This year our Resene Next Gen Supreme Award was taken out by Yu Li, a Civil Engineering PhD candidate studying at the University of Canterbury. 

To enter the Next Gen Awards nominees had to submit their 'big idea' to shake up the industry. Yu Li's idea submitted for this award is taken from the work she is completing towards her PhD thesis. Her study focuses on collecting data on how and where roads are used by using a newly developed and cost-effective Internet of Things (IoT) proptotype. The data collected can be used to automatically predict traffic positioning in difference scenarios.

Since being presented with the Award at the NZ Building People Awards on 30 August Yu Li has gotten more involved with the Institute and is now an enthusiastic member of the Young Professional Advisors group. 

She's also currently on the lookout for work which makes the most of her considerable expertise so get in touch with her to snap her up!

We asked her a few questions to get to know Yu Li a little better.