2014 AGC IT Forum Recap

2014 AGC IT Forum Recap

The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) recently held their sixth annual Information Technology Forum in Chicago’s Swissotel on July 31 and August 1.  Lane Mitchell, operating chairman of the AGC IT event, welcomed technology personnel from across America who gathered to share and learn new information surrounding the conference’s theme Changes in Construction IT: Mobile, Data, Cloud.  This year’s agenda included two keynote addresses, four rapid-fire demonstrations, three seminars and two panel presentations.

The highlights of the meeting were the mid-morning keynote addresses on both days (Burnham Works will further unpack in upcoming days). 

James Vaselopulos of PSC Group, LLC presented on the challenges and opportunities surrounding the topic of Big Data.  Companies are in the business of collecting and compiling endless amounts of information to discern new strategies, markets and advancements for their respected products.  But because companies have the data, it doesn’t mean they know how to effectively analyze the data.  Big data poses challenges in information extraction and implementation.  James helped conference participants realize these challenges and discern best practices when dealing with big data.

James Benham of JBKnowledge, Inc provided an action-packed and dynamic demonstration of new industry technology products available (or soon-to-be-available) in a presentation called Harnessing Integration, Mobile, Sensors and Augmented Reality.  Such products involved drone technology, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, Google Glass, Oculus Rift, Monverio, SignalR, and others.  James’ hands-on presentation gave the audience an opportunity to experience the excitement and imagine the possibilities with the industry’s newest technology.

Outside of the keynote speaker sessions, the networking opportunities and new product demonstrations proved the conference to be worthwhile.  The major sponsors of this year’s event was SmartUse, Soonr, Assemble, .build and NoteVault.

As new technology continues to roll into the marketplace, there is an ever-growing need for the AGC to continually provide a forum to explain and display these new products.  Construction is evolving.  And the AGC IT Forum is proving just that.