How innovative construction could ease Namibia's housing crisis

How smart construction could ease Namibia’s housing crisisHouses built using Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) are quick to build, and offer economic, environmental and social benefits.

They could provide one solution to problems of housing and economic development in Namibia, and elsewhere in the developing world.

Their adoption is held back by the unsustainable legacy processes that govern global construction.

Namibia faces a housing crisis. It needs some half a million new homes but 90% of Namibian households would not qualify for a mortgage to buy them. The problem is chronically mismanaged housing market economics, debt, muted income growth and reliance on cash lending. For now, these exclude most Namibians from home ownership.

In turn, this undermines the country’s growing economy and fuels social tension; shanty towns and shacks fly up at four times the rate of brick houses. Namibia is the second most unequal country in the world on the World Bank GINI Index. The same index shows that Namibia’s CO2 emissions have doubled since 1991, underlining the need for more sustainable housing solutions.

There are technological solutions to these problems, which could be implemented at competitive cost. Namibia offers a clear opportunity for housing development, particularly in the affordable market, where there is significant demand. Between 2009 and 2019, Namibia attracted N$59.4 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI), largely from China, Mauritius and South Africa. The challenge is to channel that money into socially and environmentally sustainable projects.

Modern methods of construction

Modern methods of construction (MMC) use off-site techniques like pre-built modular wall panels to create faster, more sustainable alternatives to brick-built structures. Comparatively, houses made using MMC are very cost competitive and adaptable. They offer environmental benefits, too. Their adoption is held back by the fact that most global construction, for now, relies upon legacy concepts and processes.

MMC work best when combined with sustainable technologies and intelligent town planning. Homes can go up speedily and affordably, packed with renewable energy kit and other emissions-saving tech to create futurist, tight-knit sustainable communities. Crucially, the dual advantages of short build time and low economic and environmental cost make the idea particularly attractive for Namibia and other developing countries.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/how-innovative-construction-could-ease-namibias-housing-crisis/

UP Express customers now benefitting from contactless debit payments

October 30, 2021

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UP Express customers now benefitting from contactless debit paymentsThe introduction of contactless debit payments for UP Express services marks the first time that a transit agency in Canada is offering this option.

Metrolinx has announced that customers can now use a physical debit card or a debit card added to a mobile wallet to pay for travel on the UP Express – a first for transit in Canada. Combined with credit card payments, customers now have more contactless options than ever when it comes to paying for their ride.

In March 2021, PRESTO began piloting new contactless payment options on UP Express, which started with credit cards and mobile wallets as a form of payment. Now, as a part of that same pilot, debit is being introduced as a payment option for customers on UP Express – the rail link that connects Union Station with Toronto Pearson International Airport.

Customers can now tap on and off using Interac® Debit, as well as internationally-issued Visa Debit and Debit Mastercard, or by adding these cards enabled with these payment methods to their mobile wallet and tapping with their phone or smart watch. This not only means more choice and convenience for UP customers, but it also marks the first time that a transit agency in Canada is offering a Canadian contactless debit option as a way to pay.

Customers can continue to use their Visa, Mastercard or American Express credit cards (the physical version or the digital version in their mobile wallet) to pay, as well as more traditional options like a PRESTO card and e-tickets.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/up-express-customers-now-benefitting-from-contactless-debit-payments/

Loudoun County deploys Intelligent Transportation System on roadways

HT Aero Raises US$500+ Million in Series A FinancingHT Aero (Huitian, or the Company), an urban air mobility (UAM) company and an affiliate of XPeng Inc., today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with a consortium of investors to raise over US$500 million for its Series A capital funding. The funding round is led by IDG Capital, 5Y Capital and XPeng Inc. with participation by a consortium of renowned investors, including Sequoia China, Eastern Bell Capital, GGV Capital, GL Ventures and Yunfeng Capital.

HT Aero Series A Financing (Photo: Business Wire)

The Series A financing from a consortium of high quality investors is a strong testament to the Company’s long-term vision, technology roadmap and its market-leading R&D capability as a prominent player in one of the most promising and disruptive technologies of future mobility. It will be the largest single-tranche fundraising to date in Asia’s low-altitude flying vehicle sector.

“Our mission has always been to explore efficient, safer, and carbon-neutral mobility solutions that go beyond smart EVs. What we are seeing is the integration of the three driving forces of smart mobility – disruptive technology, new sources of energy, and mass production. We will embrace this opportunity, which is unprecedented in the history of modern transportation. The investment in HT Aero will further accelerate the build-up of our ecosystem to integrate driving and flying”, said Mr. He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of XPeng Inc.

“HT Aero’s deeply roots in proven technology and sophisticated R&D capabilities will help it jumpstart the industrialization of flying cars,” said Mr. Guangfu Cui, Partner of IDG Capital. “We believe that the flying vehicle sector will be a trillion-dollar market. The rapid technological evolution of batteries, autonomous driving and materials science provide the synergies needed to create a new paradigm for flying cars.”
https://www.civilengineering.ai/ht-aero-raises-us500-million-in-series-a-financing/

Opinion: Drought is among the biggest dangers to the U.S. New water technology is making its way across the country

October 28, 2021

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Drought is among the biggest dangers to the U.S. New water technology is making its way across the countryHydroponics and regenerative agriculture are two methods the U.S. West is using to keep food growing.

If you’re having a salad for lunch today, chances are it comes from the “Salad Bowl of the World,” the lush farmland that stretches for some 90 miles across California’s Salinas Valley. Lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, broccoli, strawberries, celery, cauliflower and more grow in abundance there, a source of pride and profits for farmers who work the land.

But none of it would be possible without water, and that’s the problem. The Salinas Valley is at the epicenter of a multi-year drought that’s as bad as it has ever been. Vegetables are a commodity, and as water grows scarce, price shocks could follow.

Here’s an ominous example of scarce: California’s snowpack, on June 1, was 0% of its long-term average, according to the state’s Department of Water Resources. Zero.

That’s a big problem because melting snow provides roughly 75% of the state’s agricultural water. On top of that, rain is rare. The Valley typically gets about 15 inches per year; in the first six months of 2021, about a third of that has fallen, including just four-tenths of one inch of rain between April and June.

It’s not just Salinas Valley, of course. Farmers everywhere are feeling the pinch as water dries up. Gabriel Castenada, who manages Humberto Castañeda Produce in nearby Sonoma County, planted only 17 acres of crops this year — mostly heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and watermelon — instead of the usual 180 acres.

“We weren’t sure how much water we were going to get,” he said in an interview. “We have to be very conservative with every drop.”

Other growers are ripping up water-guzzling alfalfa plants and almond trees —California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a $6 billion industry. And ranchers practically everywhere are culling their livestock amid reports that 60% of the nation’s cow herd is now “in some level of drought or dryness.”

Is this the new normal? A combination of longer, more intense heat waves, less precipitation, and surging population growth in the West and Southwest — Arizona, Nevada and Utah were among the three-fastest growing states according to 2020 Census data — are straining water supplies across a vast area encompassing one-third of the continental United States. The latest map rendering by U.S. Drought Monitor shows “abnormally dry” to “exceptional drought” conditions stretching from the Canadian to Mexican borders, and everything west of the Rockies, including the entire, and heavily populated, West Coast.

Demographics and a changing climate are just two problems. Many of America’s water woes also result from years of under investment in critical infrastructure. With some exceptions, the nation’s 2.2 million mile network of underground pipes is so dilapidated that there’s a water main break in this country every two minutes. The American Society of Civil Engineers, which supplies this data point, says this costs us six billion gallons of treated water every day. That’s the daily equivalent of 18 gallons of water for every man, woman and child in this country. More on this in a moment.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/opinion-drought-is-among-the-biggest-dangers-to-the-u-s-new-water-technology-is-making-its-way-across-the-country/

Australian Researchers to Develop AI For Geospatial Intelligence

October 28, 2021

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Australian Researchers to Develop AI For Geospatial IntelligenceUniversity of Wollongong (UOW) researchers will share in $1.2 million in funding as part of a Federal Government program to strengthen Australia’s critical geospatial intelligence capabilities. Associate Professor Son Lam Phung, Senior Professor Salim Bouzerdoum, and Dr Fok Hing Chi Tivive, from UOW’s School of Electrical, Computer and Telecommunications Engineering, will lead the project – ‘What vessel is that?’ – to develop a machine learning tool that can detect and classify ocean vessels from satellite synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imagery.

Machine learning is a part of artificial intelligence in which computers learn to perform tasks by discovering patterns and decision rules directly from data. The idea of this project is to develop a tool that can detect and quickly differentiate a fishing boat from a patrol boat, for example, or a military ship from a cargo vessel.

Professor Phung said that there has been an increasing interest in maritime surveillance to counter illegal fishing and maintain maritime rights and interests. Operating surveillance drones is not sufficient alone. By contrast, satellite SAR can acquire images at a larger scale for vessel detection. Detecting vessels in SAR images is challenging because of the complex background, high noise, varying target sizes, and high dynamic range of SAR images. For this project, recent advances in deep learning will be leveraged to process large-scale SAR images for vessel detection and classification.

The funding is through the Analytics Labs Program of the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO) in the Department of Defence and coordinated by FrontierSI, a research centre with expertise in spatial information technologies.

The $1.2 million programme is designed to improve the AGO’s understanding of the modern machine analytics capabilities developed by industry while raising industry awareness of AGO’s current and emerging challenges.

The project will also involve postdoctoral researcher Thanh Le and several PhD students (including Hieu Phan and Ly Bui). Hence, it helps train the next generation of researchers with skills in AI and machine learning to address defence and security needs.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/australian-researchers-to-develop-ai-for-geospatial-intelligence/

Can civil engg prof teach AI? Old hands pushed to teach new tech

October 28, 2021

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Can civil engg prof teach AI? Old hands pushed to teach new tech | Hyderabad News - Times of IndiaHyderabad: Skewed demand for core courses due to introduction of emerging technology has hit the faculty members from disciplines such as mechanical, electronics and electrical hard. Faculty are now compelled to upgrade their expertise to teach computer science engineering (CSE) related courses.

This year, the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTUH) gave a big push to emerging technology courses by adding additional number of seats to accommodate the growing demand. Niche courses such as those within the CSE streams such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data sciences were some courses introduced.

“We are being asked to undergo various development programmes for emerging technology to be able to teach computer science students. Colleges are not keen to continue courses in core disciplines and are instead focusing only on computer science branch,” said a faculty member from a private engineering
https://www.civilengineering.ai/can-civil-engg-prof-teach-ai-old-hands-pushed-to-teach-new-tech/

Data Scientist Garima Raheja Is Addressing the Environmental Justice Issues of Air Pollution

October 28, 2021

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Data Scientist Garima Raheja Is Addressing the Environmental Justice Issues of Air PollutionAfter spending most of her childhood in New Delhi, India — one of the most polluted cities in the world — air pollution had become a fact of life for Garima Raheja.

In 2007, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with her family when she was in the fourth grade. “It was a very interesting transition for sure,” said Raheja, now a PhD candidate at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

Ten years after moving to California, she experienced the stifling impacts of air pollution again while heading to Alcatraz Island in October 2017. A major wildfire had broken out in Northern California and the sky turned pink and hazy from the high levels of air pollution. “My eyes started watering. This was the first time I experienced something like that in the U.S.,” said Raheja. “Now, wildfire warnings are sent out frequently here.”

That day acutely reminded her of how normalized it has become to live with hazardously high levels of air pollution in urban India. “I’m deeply worried about my family back home in India as they experience the worst effects of air pollution. Especially my grandparents,” said Raheja.

By the time she went to college in California, she knew she wanted to study the atmospheric and public health impacts of urban air pollution.

“A lot of emphasis is put on individual efforts to reduce carbon emissions. But in New Delhi and many other urban areas across the world, the reason behind high levels of air pollution is often bad policy,” said Raheja. “If we want to make good policies, we have to interpret the impact of air pollution,” she added.

Pivoting from environmental engineering to data science

Although Raheja knew she wanted to study the impacts of air pollution, it took some time to find exactly the right path.

While she was pursuing dual degrees in data science and civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, she joined the university’s Environmental Air Quality and CO2 Network. The research group’s aim is to install low-cost air sensors all over the Bay Area. That way, scientists can collect data and study the levels of air pollution caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

“We need more of these sensor networks around the world to make any kind of progress in improving air quality,” said Raheja.

Prior to that, Raheja completed an internship at NASA where she worked with a team that used satellite data to investigate the sources of methane emissions in different parts of the country. The data helped to identify methane hotspots where major leaks were taking place.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/data-scientist-garima-raheja-is-addressing-the-environmental-justice-issues-of-air-pollution/

Humo develops wearable sensors to prevent workplace injuries

October 28, 2021

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Humo develops wearable sensors to prevent workplace injuriesHumo, a digital health and analytics company, is using wearable sensors and artificial intelligence to prevent injuries in the workplace.

The company’s devices, which are packed with sensors, are clipped on to a worker’s waist, wrist and chest. The devices then generate biomechanics and data sets that can be analyzed by artificial intelligence which can determine if training needs to be conducted or tasks should be altered.

According to Humo, workers can also receive continuous coaching with a light vibration every time a high-risk posture is performed.

The project caught the attention of the province and safety industry leaders in Saskatchewan. Innovation Saskatchewan, in partnership with the Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association (SCSA), launched this year’s Innovation Challenge by asking technology startups, entrepreneurs, researchers and students to find technology solutions to one question: “How can technology be used by the construction industry to identify hazards and reduce injuries?”

Humo beat out seven other shortlisted submissions to win $10,000 and a 16-week residency to develop their solution with the association. Following the residency, a demonstration day will showcase their solution, which is planned for early 2022.

Humo founder and managing director Christian Browne learned first-hand how health and safety can impact workers when he served as a safety adviser in the oil and gas sector. He was tasked with reducing musculoskeletal injuries but he became frustrated with the reactive approach.

“My job was to go out, find out what happened, keep a database of injuries and formulate a solution,” said Browne. “I became frustrated because the solution is to be proactive.”

His solution, the wearable sensors and AI analytics, is still in development but he hopes in the future it can become more sophisticated and prevent injuries. The more data the AI has, the more it is able to learn and the more sophisticated it becomes at recognizing harmful activity.

“We noticed that just having the sensors on workers gave them more understanding of how they were moving and we want to see that increase,” said Browne.

The team intends to gather data from a handful of men and women performing various tasks over the next few weeks. Then they want to test it with a number of construction workers on real jobsites.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/humo-develops-wearable-sensors-to-prevent-workplace-injuries/

Yes, the Digital Twin War Is Here

October 28, 2021

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Yes, the Digital Twin War Is Here | CDOTrendsProfessor Joe Mathew was very excited when he saw a digital twin of the republic of Singapore when he was at a conference earlier this year.

After a long career in academia, Mathew is a mechanical engineer who is now head of the Asset Institute. This Australian research organization is shaping the evolving discipline of asset management.

This is where engineering intersects with accounting and accounting standards to create new frameworks for the optimal management of assets — usually public assets — to deliver the best service to stakeholders for the most cost-effective price.

Mathew has been working in this area for several decades. He now sees it evolving even further as it plugs into data with new analytic tools, often using data from remote sensing and potentially the Internet of Things.

“It started as a preventative regime, then became a predictive regime, and now it’s a prescriptive regime,” says Mathew.

“And now we are bringing in more and more data, and data-driven decision making has increasingly become the norm.”

This includes predictive analytics and dashboarding systems and the digital twin concept, where variables can be applied to a digital version of an asset to see how it might perform.

More than a copy

The Singapore digital twin was created around 2014. It is much more than a 3D representation of the city-state, and the reason for that is that it can now change with the use of real-time data.

“It is supposed to replicate the transport network and the buildings, build some smarts around that, and the next phase is to bring in data to the visualization model and run maintenance programs on those,” says Mathew.

The emerging field of IoT and remote sensing uses low orbiting satellites, which can use data to improve asset management.

Digital Twin platform is also becoming useful in manufacturing, where companies use 3D models of the factory and all its components — including people — as a precursor to building the physical factory.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/yes-the-digital-twin-war-is-here/

October 26, 2021

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Ubicquia’s smart city tech is going global with the help of Silicon Valley BankSmart city electronics startup Ubicquia is going global after securing $25 million in debt and working capital from Silicon Valley Bank.

The company plans to expand its smart city and grid platforms to Europe and Asia after the capital injection, said CEO Ian Aaron. The funding will also ensure Ubicquia can meet its supply chain demands – which has been constrained due to pandemic-tied interruptions – as it expands its product portfolio and customer base.

" has been our working capital partner as we started our journey in the U.S.," Aaron said. "We are now strengthening our partnership as we expand further into Latin America and explore new distribution across Europe and Asia."
https://www.civilengineering.ai/ubicquias-smart-city-tech-is-going-global-with-the-help-of-silicon-valley-bank/

Recent Facebook Outage Highlights the Vulnerability of Smart Buildings

October 26, 2021

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Recent Facebook Outage Highlights the Vulnerability of Smart BuildingsFacebook is one of the world’s tech giants. The company is worth almost a trillion dollars. Nearly half of the people on the planet, 3.5 billion, use one of Facebook’s apps, which include Instagram and WhatsApp, regularly. They are at the forefront of the tech revolution and have been a driving force behind many of the major changes in our society, both good and bad. But for five hours on Monday, their entire global operation was frozen, anyone who typed facebook.com into their web browser was automatically told that “this site can’t be reached.”

Many suspected that the company was hacked. The outage came only hours after a 60 Minute segment aired which featured a whistleblower who claimed that the company knew their platform was causing disinformation and hate speech but did little to curtail it. But an official statement later said that the problem was due to a faulty configuration change in the company’s Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) records. The BGP is how internet service providers share routing information so the error basically deleted the map telling computers and mobile phones where to find the pictures of food, cat memes, and news (both real and fake) that the company is known for. Several domain registrations sites even listed the domain facebook.com as up for sale when their automated web crawlers found that the site had seemingly expired.

It wasn’t just users that were locked out of Facebook. Employees reported that they were not able to use even get into the building because their badges no longer worked. This was likely one of the reasons why the site was down for so long.

https://www.civilengineering.ai/recent-facebook-outage-highlights-the-vulnerability-of-smart-buildings/

Drones to Manage Powerline Vegetation: Routescene UAV LiDAR

October 26, 2021

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Drones to Manage Powerline Vegetation: Routescene UAV LiDARRoutescene case study demonstrates the benefits of using drones to manage powerline vegetation.

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

The latest in a series of forestry based case studies conducted by Routescene showcases the value of remote sensing techniques like UAV LiDAR for identifying diseased or damaged trees and overgrown vegetation close to powerlines to prevent outages or forest fires.

The project at Pound Farm in Suffolk, UK sought to identify ailing trees and overgrown vegetation that posed a risk of damaging the 33kV power lines running through the 120 acre forest. Routescene collaborated with 2Excel Geo, Fera Science and Dielmo 3D in order to provide the results to the Woodland Trust that owns the land.

In recent years, the forest has been affected by the highly destructive fungal disease known as Ash dieback. Capable of killing ash trees quickly, its symptoms include a blackening and wilting of leaves in mid to late summer.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/drones-to-manage-powerline-vegetation-routescene-uav-lidar/

Construction underway on Spokane’s first zero-carbon ‘smart home’ for ALS patients

October 26, 2021

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Construction underway on Spokane’s first zero-carbon ‘smart home’ for ALS patientsThe Toolbox co-founder Andy Barrett, left, and Jack Heath, right, president and chief operating officer of Washington Trust Bank, join Matt’s Place Foundation founders Matt Wild and his wife, Theresa Whitlock-Wild, at The Toolbox. Modules for smart homes designed for ALS patients are made at The Toolbox. (Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review)

It often costs thousands of dollars for people diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and their families to pay for medical care and retrofit their homes for accessibility.

Nonprofit Matt’s Place Foundation and a group of area businesses are looking to ease that financial burden by building an eco-friendly, state-of-the-art, interactive “smart home” designed specifically for ALS patients and their families to live in while coping with the disease.

“We’re really pushing the envelope on carbon neutral design,” said Andy Barrett, board member of Matt’s Place Foundation. “For Matt’s Place, their audacious goal is to make the smartest home in the world for ALS patients. It’s unique in that standpoint, and then, of course, it’s unique that we’re building these for at-risk ALS patients and families to keep them together.”

Matt’s Place Foundation built its first smart home for ALS patients in 2017 in Coeur d’Alene with assistance from several contractors, builders and subcontractors that donated labor and materials.

The Spokane project, however, is the first ALS smart home to be built with cross-laminated timber.

Cross-laminated timber, made by compressing and gluing lumber boards together to form structural panels and beams, is gaining national attention as an alternative to traditional concrete and steel building materials because of its low environmental impact and design flexibility. It can be made from small diameter trees to create a strong but lightweight building material.

The 2,000-square-foot ALS smart home consists of 13 smaller modules each with a floor, walls and a roof that will be prebuilt and later assembled on site at 1116 E. Francis Ave. to create the two-story property. Construction of the modules is underway at The Toolbox, an innovation center for startups co-founded by Barrett.

The project is estimated to cost about $200,000 after in-kind donations, Barrett said.

Colville-based Vaagen Timbers designed a 3-D model for the home and created cross-laminated timber panels sourced from Vaagen Brothers Lumber, said Russ Vaagen, CEO of Vaagen Timbers.

“The product comes from the Colville National Forest,” Vaagen said. “Not only is this great for an ALS space, it’s also local. It came from logs that were thinned and at a great risk for wildfire.”
https://www.civilengineering.ai/construction-underway-on-spokanes-first-zero-carbon-smart-home-for-als-patients/

The German Aerospace Center Unveils U-Shift and a Futuristic Rescue Mobility Concept

October 26, 2021

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The German Aerospace Center Unveils U-Shift and a Futuristic Rescue Mobility ConceptAutonomous vehicles with capsule-shaped structures, intelligent road intersections, helicopters communicating with drones, and self-driving cars – these aren’t bits from a Sci-Fi movie, but elements of the German Aerospace Center (DLR)’s vision for the future of mobility.

One of the most important mobility events, the ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) World Congress is welcoming its first guests today, in Hamburg, Germany. DLR, one of the major transport research institutions in Europe, will be showcasing its most recent developments, including live demonstrations of its innovative technologies.

One of the stars of the exhibition will be the U-Shift concept vehicle. DLR will showcase the first drivable prototype of this modular vehicle that combines self-driving technology with electric propulsion and a remarkably flexible design. The unusual concept integrates a U-shaped power train unit, containing all the technical components, with a capsule-like structure that can be adapted for passenger transport or cargo delivery.

Thanks to this versatile build, the U-Shift vehicle has a wide range of potential applications, from shared mobility to shops-on-wheels.

DLR will also be performing a live demonstration of the Air2X project, meant to improve speed and safety when it comes to helicopter rescue operations on public roads. Using advanced communication technology, the helicopter crew will first send a signal to drones nearby, to clear the airspace, for the rescue operation.

Then, autonomous and networked vehicles in the area will be informed in regards to the planned landing area, so that they can form a barrier for the vehicles behind them. This way, the rescue helicopter can act much faster and land safely.

Another innovative DLR project, called VITAL, is based on the communication between vehicles and infrastructure. Smart road junctions could control traffic in a safer and more effective way, by using data provided through communication with vehicles, to determine current traffic conditions and improve the traffic lights system.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/the-german-aerospace-center-unveils-u-shift-and-a-futuristic-rescue-mobility-concept/

As smart buildings increase, so does cybersecurity risk

October 26, 2021

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As smart buildings increase, so does cybersecurity riskIntelligent building solutions or “smart buildings” are increasingly becoming the norm across many property types. Tenants and building owners are drawn to the ease and convenience of scheduling and programming elevator arrivals, conference room bookings, HVAC systems, and more, all through their smartphones. However, as buildings become more and more programmable from multiple users, the cybersecurity risk has also increased in lockstep.

According to a recent whitepaper between JLL’s Property Management group, Red Bison Technology Group and Fortinet, intelligent building solutions offer tremendous benefits but only if risk can be appropriately managed.

“Owners are always concerned with risk to their assets whether it be through natural disasters, or human-driven risk and rightly so,” said Jason Lund, Managing Director of JLL’s Property Management Technology Division. “Cyber risk is increasing yearly. As we technologically enable our buildings, we are also making them more hackable. We can’t leave behind the tremendous benefits of technology in buildings for the environment, cost efficiencies, safety and other uses so we must actively pursue a parallel strategy of ensuring cyber security even as we enable our buildings.”

“Many commercial buildings currently operate with disparate systems and separate networks for every in-building technology, which increases deployment costs and limits visibility into vulnerability,” added Lynn Martin, CEO Red Bison. “A move toward a centralized or converged network as a ‘backbone’ for technology infrastructure within buildings allows building owners to monitor all systems at once with end-to-end visibility and allows for quicker identification and resolution of cybersecurity breaches.”

Cybersecurity should be placed at the forefront of building owners’ minds as we move towards a “smarter” built-world. With proper safeguards in place, the benefits of smart technology will long outweigh any negatives.

JLL’s 2,300 property management experts in the U.S. provide comprehensive real estate services in more than 1,200 buildings totaling more than 208 million square feet.

For more news, videos and research resources on JLL, please visit our newsroom.

About JLL

JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. JLL shapes the future of real estate for a better world by using the most advanced technology to create rewarding opportunities, amazing spaces and sustainable real estate solutions for our clients, our people and our communities. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $16.6 billion in 2020, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 92,000 as of June 30, 2021. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit jll.com.
https://www.civilengineering.ai/as-smart-buildings-increase-so-does-cybersecurity-risk/

Qatari market now more open to digital solutions

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