Here’s what we have found most interesting this week…
£11.2bn is all we need! A ‘Build Back Better: Covid-19 Economy Recovery Plan’ proposed by experts continues our theme that construction is a keystone for wider economic recovery and gives us more of an educated guess on where the focus will be.
And, as if by magic, yesterday Grant Schapps started to put some meat on the bones:
“To make sure Britain is ready to bounce back from coronavirus, today I can announce £2bn to upgrade our roads and our railways. To put our transport infrastructure in the best possible shape and to get our economy growing again. This package includes £1.7bn for local roads to make our journeys smoother buy filling millions of dangerous potholes.”
More reasons to be cheerful c/o The Economist:
A struggling Airbnb was still called AirBed&Breakfast when its founders decided to bet its future on the Democratic National Committee in Denver in 2008.
Their air-bed idea was not popular with the 80,000 people congregated to select a presidential candidate. So, they focused on breakfast instead, peddling $40 boxes of cereals called Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s (their quip: “Be a cereal entrepreneur”).
The timing was as bad as the pun. The event came just weeks before Lehman Brothers collapsed at the height of the financial crisis of 2007-09.
Yet shortly afterwards they obtained their first-ever funding. The angel investor who backed them dubbed them “cockroaches” for their survival skills.
Like Airbnb, some of the best-known names in business started during steep slumps, including Uber (2009), Microsoft (1975), Disney (1923), General Motors (1908) and General Electric (1890).
Disruptive products and services, too, have emerged in times of crisis, notably Apple’s iPod as the dotcom bubble burst in 2000 and Alibaba’s Taobao, an online-shopping mall, during China’s SARS epidemic of 2003.
The eternal optimist might hope building major infrastructure projects faster will be a catalyst for more innovation and exciting new start-ups in the UK construction industry!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Neil Thompson, Director of Digital Construction and Zane Ulhaq, Digital Engineering Manager, Atkins.
Read the full BIM+ article here on the lock down giving us the opportunity to become better-equipped for the digital future. And maybe build faster???
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
The future of construction and AEC for a post-COVID 19 world – a brighter future for cutting-edge technology in the industry? Read more in this Global Construction article here.
JOB OF THE WEEK:
BIM MANAGER – USA
Early heads up of an exciting opportunity coming up on the west coast with one of our best clients. You will need to be a green card holder though!
This job hasn’t been posted yet. Early birds (with a green card please!) can email mike@johnsonbim.com and I will let you know as soon as the role is live.
EVENTS NEXT WEEK
Lots of virtual events happening next week!
- The next online instalment in the DT Hub Digital Twin Talks is happening on Tuesday – ‘‘Twinfrastructure, Creating a Common Language‘.
- Wednesday is the thinkBIM Digital Twins Online Conference.
- And on Thursday UK Construction Week are hosting a webinar – ‘How digitalisation can assist construction, operations, engineering and manufacturing in dealing with COVID-19’
There are more online BIM and digital construction centric events on our events page.
If you see anything else online that we should be featuring please let us know: sobie@dbe.careers