Speakers - Kaikōrero

Adam Tindall – Building Information Manager, Assemble

Adam has been on the Assemble team for nearly a decade across the Residential, Commercial, Education, Hotel, Hospitality, and Industrial sectors. Assemble works on a vast range of project types and scales and Adam’s experience is in the management and delivery for full project life cycle BIM on mid to larger scale projects. He focuses on implementing new approaches to BIM from design, construction, project handover and works with clients defining asset information requirements and project delivery methods.

Adam is passionate about the potential of new technologies and how we interact and leverage them to bring added value throughout the entire project life cycle.

Topic - Foodstuffs HQ at Auckland Airport - The Journey from Design to Handover and Beyond

Keri Niven – Digital Practice Lead, Aurecon

Keri is a passionate Digital Technologist, with a strong background in Geospatial technologies, and over 20 years international experience in designing enterprise collaboration platforms.  

Keri is the New Zealand Digital Practice Leader for Aurecon and she thrives on working with clients to uncover innovation and efficiency opportunities that leverage digital processes and technologies.

Keri’s primary area of expertise is in integrating principles of human centred design with her experience in organisational transformation and strategic roadmap development.  With expertise gained from infrastructure and construction projects around the world Keri is passionate about design technologies and international best practice frameworks that enable full lifecycle asset and information management. Keri is particularly interested in automating the interfaces between multidisciplinary modelling and design environments and using this to improve efficiency and co-ordination.  Keri represents Aurecon on the ANZ Smart Cities Council and on the ANZ Digital Twin Taskforce.

 Topic: Shifting New Zealand from BIM to Better (Information) Asset Management through Digital Engineering

Andy Lyon – Programme Director, Digital Engineering, KiwiRail

As KiwiRail’s Programme Director for the Wellington Metro Upgrade, Andy leads the development and delivery of a range of projects that aim to provide a more resilient higher capacity rail network for Wellington.  Andy was previously involved with the Wellington Metro Upgrade as the Programme Manager of the KiwiRail Digital Engineering Pilot which included the award winning Trentham to Upper Hutt project.

As a result of the successful digital delivery of the DE pilot, and prior to returning to the Wellington Metro, Andy set up the KiwiRail Digital Engineering Programme which was formed to transform the way KiwiRail works.

Andy is passionate about working with industry to affect a wider change in this area, and is a founding of the Digital Asset Owners Forum which seeks to drive consistency in the uptake of BIM and digital engineering through collaboration with other asset owners.

Topic - KiwiRail's Digital Engineering Journey

Rebecca De Cicco – Principal, Digital Enablement, Aurecon + Founder & Chair, Women in BIM

Rebecca De Cicco is the Principal of Digital Enablement for advisory firm Aurecon, acting to drive and support growth in digital enablement opportunities across the group, helping clients to strategize, create and manage assets in a more intelligent and digitally focused way. In March 2021, Rebecca’s own consultancy Digital Node was acquired by Aurecon, where she provided leading digital transformation and BIM capability to its people, clients and projects. Her work across the group focuses on advisory as well as upskilling and educating industry in the adoption of digitally focused processes, requirements and technologies, all of which are a great passion to her.  

Rebecca is also the sole founder of Women in BIM (WIB) which she co-created in the UK in 2012 to support the lack of diversity across our sector and in particular digital. Her vision was to create an opportunity to gather and grow women in the digital space by providing an outlet to network, share and work together. The group began as a UK focused initiative and it has now become a global support network with WIB regional leads appointed in over 35 countries across the globe driving and supporting their main themes and incentives.  

Topic - Women in BIM: The growth of a global community.  How the Importance of Diversity, Future Skills, and Knowledge for the Built Environment will impact on our future workforce. 

Christian McCartney – BIM & Technology Systems Lead, Hawkins Auckland

As Hawkins’ national Digital Construction/BIM lead, Christian has considerable experience in the successful implementation and utilization of BIM processes and tools across a range of projects – commercial, education, and infrastructure, through to large scale developments within operational hospital and airport environments. His site-based background ensures that this is always tempered by a practical perspective and aligned with the needs and capabilities of the project team.

Christian is a regular contributor to industry and academic initiatives including the ongoing development of the NZ BIM Handbook and guest lecturing to the next generation of industry professionals. Christian also chairs the committee of the BIMinNZ Auckland network group.

Topic - Foodstuffs HQ at Auckland Airport - The Journey from Design to Handover and Beyond

Emily Newmarch – PhD Candidate, Victoria University of Wellington; Low Carbon Design Specialist, Warren and Mahoney

Emily‘s PhD research project represents a partnership with Warren and Mahoney to explore the possibilities of low carbon design for the industry. Specifically, her research is focused on understanding the way we can measure, design and value architecture for a low carbon future. 

Emily‘s previous research focused on the integration of thermal performance analysis within different BIM enabled software. Through her work in this area of investigation, she has been published internationally on scientific platforms, while Emily has also been the recipient of awards for design.

Outside of her studies, Emily has been involved with teaching students design processes, environmental design, construction, and research methodologies.

Topic: Delivering Net-Zero: BIM enabled carbon calculation

Farzam Farzadi – Senior Associate, Digital Engineering Advisory, Beca

Farzam has more than 16 years of experience working in the construction industry across multiple segments such as Commercial, Industrial, Education, Health, T&I, Water, Defence , and Tourism. He is truly passionate about Digital Engineering and Digital Asset Management. He eagers to identify innovative approaches and utilise practical procedures to generate high-quality outcomes. He starts the design stage of every project with a focus on the construction and operation phases. Farzam strives to understand the needs of his clients so can empower them with digital approaches that provide effective outcomes. He drives development, collaboration, and coordination of Digital Engineering processes which can have positive impacts during life cycle assets. Farzam was declared winner of the Innovation and the Supreme Awards at this year’s New Zealand Institute of Building (NZIOB) awards. He became a history maker by being the first Innovation Award winner in New Zealand who won the Supreme Award as well.

Topic: Data-Driven mindset Improves Productivity and Saves Time in Delivery of Major Infrastructure Projects

Jae Warrander, Director, Makers of Architecture & Glen Stricot-Tarboton, Makers Fabrication

Jae Warrander and Glen Stricot-Tarboton are from Makers, a multidisciplinary architecture, fabrication & construction company. Together Makers deliver custom design through digital technologies, off-site manufacturing and construction efficiencies, with a goal to bring architecture and construction environments closer together.

Jae is a director and co-founder of Makers of Architecture, the Makers design practice.  He has a passion for creating beautiful architecture that can be built more efficiently through digital technologies, ultimately getting more design built.

Glen is representing Makers Fabrication - the construction and offsite manufacturing facility. He joined the Makers team in 2017 in the Makers of Architecture office, and then moved to manage projects and operations at Makers Fabrication. Glen focuses on the continual improvement of construction efficiencies through digital technology, and the effective communication of complex designs throughout the project delivery.

Topic: Design Making

Jane Henley – Transformation Lead, Innovation.  Construction Sector Accord

Jane is on a mission to improve the performance of the building and construction sector.

She has been a pioneer in driving system transformation across the construction sector for the past 15 years. Much of that working internationally at the nexus of sustainability, innovation and impact investment. Since returning to Aotearoa she has led the Off-Site Manufacturing (OSM) Strategy with Kāinga Ora and developed a Cross Government Agency Collaboration on OSM. 

Jane is a people person and believes that together we can find ways to improve our systems and supersede outdated modes of operating.

Kylie Adamson – Senior Associate and Project BIM Manager, Warren and Mahoney

Kylie joined Warren and Mahoney in 2018 and is a Senior Associate and Project BIM Manager. She draws on over 20 years’ experience in complex architecture projects across a broad range of building typologies. With much of that time spent as a technician, she has strong capabilities in the craft and detail of architecture.

Kylie is responsible for implementing the Building Information Modelling strategy on complex projects. She supports the consultant team through facilitation, collaboration, and auditing. Her goal is to ensure a well-coordinated project, with a focus on risk mitigation.

Topic: Digital for Heritage

Richard McIntosh – General Manager, Major Projects at Watercare Services Limited

An experienced senior leader and executive director with a demonstrated global track record in the civil engineering and water industry. Richard has experience in governance, management, and strategy as well as project delivery under various forms of procurement and contract models from his time in New Zealand and the UK. Richard’s passion is to lead change and provide opportunities for the people he leads to develop and be the best they can be. As the Watercare Enterprise Model General Manager, Richard drives innovation, change, and improvement through creating and implementing a unique procurement model in the Water and Infrastructure sector.

Topic: The Watercare Enterprise Model and Implementation of Practical Digital Engineering Solutions

Sean Audain – Strategic Planning Manager, Wellington City Council

Sean Audain is the Strategic Planning Manager at the Wellington City Council and responsible for leading the Urban Planning, City Insights, Cultural Heritage, Iwi/RMA interface and Infrastructure Strategy for Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Sean has been a leader in Urban Planning, particularly city innovation and digital cities for the past ten years, exploring how Open Data, AI, Reality Technologies, Geospatial and other Digital Capabilities can make for more adaptive, engaging and resilient cities. Sean has served on national and international bodies including the Open Government Partnership Expert Advisory Panel, the ANZ Future of Place initiative, The World Economic Forums G20 cities Privacy Impact taskforce and Digital Twins Advisory Panel. Sean’s work has been recognised through a number of international awards including Harvard TECH City Innovator of the year 2020 and Wellington being selected for the Bloomberg Global Mayors Challenge.

Topic: Digital Twin in Local Government

Derek Kawiti - Professor of Architecture, Victoria University Wellington