The West Africa Digital Construction 2019 organized by Saifee was held at Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja. The program spanned over two days beginning from the 15th of October and ending on the 16th of October, 2019.
The event was aimed at giving participants an indepth analysis of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to create more awareness of the benefits and importance of the tecnological solution. With the rise of the digital era, every sector in the world has felt the impact of technological advances and innovations likewise in the construction industry, BIM is an emerging concept that many are yet to embrace.
One of the speakers Mr Victor Bankole who is a Managing partner at Design Gate, gave his presentation on the Integrated Design – Costing Approach titled ‘Adopting an Integrated Design-Costing Approach to Total Cost Management’. His paper emphasized on the need for industry players to collaborate on projects from the commencement of a construction planning process. This he explained to be a key contributing factor to ensure that there is adequate and proper use of money in a project as this would allow everyone on the team to have full understanding of the cost implications and all the other essentials. The issues of overheads can be mitigated if this integrated design – costing approach is incorporated into the sector.
The Managing Director/CEO of Galaxy Backbone Mr Yusuf Kazaure shed light into the workings of the government-owned ICT initiative. He spoke on ‘Harnessing a National Coverage and integrated Datacentre in the Digital Economy’. He explained that the government uses this platform as a means to provide services to the underserved communities. With over 60 million SMEs in Nigeria, he stated that there is a need to tap into the possibilities they offer, which is what Galaxy backbone fosters. The company enables a relationship between these SMEs and the government. As long as an individual is within the circumference of where their equipment have been deployed they would be granted access, all they have to do is connect. He highlighted the concept of eLTE which stands for ‘e-long term evolution’. He also stressed on the fact that there is a need for private and public collaborations.
The presentation titled ‘BIM for Infrastructure: Sustainable Infrastructure Design and Construction against Flooding’ was given by Engr. Abubakar Lawal. Using pictorials of BIM software designs and images gotten from drone-mapping, he explained the technicalities involved in using BIM softwares. Flooding as a current issue around the world was used to give context to his presentation. He listed different softwares and their benefits such as Autodesk. He emphasized on the fact that BIM softwares enables and fosters proper planning when it comes to mitigating flood, also adding that drone-mapping assists with infrastructural planning. He ended his presentation by stressing that visualization is important and of great benefit to clients and this is what BIM allows industry experts to achieve.
