On November 12th, 2024, AEC Angels hosted a symposium,  “AEC/O Innovation: A Full Lifecycle Perspective” at the STO Building Group NY office. The event, held in conjunction with NYC Real Estate Tech Week, and BuiltWorlds, kicked off with an overview of the latest trends and innovation shaping the AE space by BuiltWorlds Senior Analyst Sean Wrenn and VP of Sales, Jack Forde. The conference also included a range of brief informational presentations as well as two interactive panels.

The first panel, “AE Technologies Impacting the NYC Skyline,” featured speakers from Thornton Tomasetti (TT), SHoP Architects (SHoP), Overlay Capital, and Arup. The group discussed:

• The criteria considered when investing in, adopting and bringing new technologies online.
• Who’s in charge of innovation and who controls the profit.
• The need to shift to a value-based pricing model within AEC.
• Incentivizing staff to keep innovating and rewarding those who are curious.

The second panel, “Construction Management & Operations Impacting the NYC Skyline,” offered perspectives from STO Building Group, Syska Hennessy Group, and Morgan Stanley. They covered:

• Digital twins and their impact on both the construction and management of buildings.
• The reality capture of other Building Management Systems (BMS): their potential as well as their challenges.
• The need to change the way things are built; from the current Design, Bid, Build model to a more collaborative process. 
• Bringing subcontractors to the table earlier for better planning, schedule management, and flexibility. 
• Making better, long-term, life-cycle decisions that would bring higher value to clients.

The event also included Building Tech Presentations by Kristina Bach, president and co-founder of Skema, and Paul Reynolds, CEO of CALMFLOOR, as well as construction tech presentations by Natalie Campos-Goodman, founder and CEO of IncentiFind, and Ross Blum, president and COO of Skyline Robotics.