Digital Built Australia (DBA): Recent Episodes
Digital Built Australia
Digital Built Australia (DBA) is the podcast exploring digital and data innovation in the built environment. Join Adam and Gavin as they discuss everything from the planning and design of public places and spaces, to the operation and maintenance of infrastructure assets. Guest commentators also join the hosts who represent policy making, professional practice and acdademia.
In this final episode of season 3 of the DBA podcast we interview Lisa Prime, a champion of sustainability, planning and the built environment in Ontario, Canada.
Lisa's love of geography and passion for learning saw her career evolve across multiple roles in the public and private sector, including a decade helping shape one of Toronto's signature urban renewal projects - Waterfront Toronto. She was recently Chief Planner at the City of Cambridge, ON where her passion for digital enablement in the built environment gathered momentum. And now in the private sector with Diamond Schmitt, Lisa continues to push for sustainable change in Canada's communities.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
The Digital Atlas of Australia is the nations leading platform for trusted high-value data. It enbles government and industry to explore, visualise and analyse data on Australia's people, environment, geography and economy.
In this episode we sit down with Lisa Bush, Head of the National Location Information Branch at Geoscience Australia, who has been stewarding the program of creating, acquiring and connecting trusted data sets and the partnerships to enable this.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
As the TEMPO team travelled through North America in June 2024, there was one key stakeholder that stood out when discussing digital and data and housing.
Bert Pereboom is an Advisor with the Canadian government's Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CHMC) and in this interview he sits down with Gavin to discuss the current housing challenges across Canada and how data is at the centre of policy making, and the emerging digital transition to ensure greater efficiencies are gained through strategic investments in technology.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
As we continue our industry leader showcases there are only a small handful (possibly less) of those that have played truly transformational roles within government. It is a rare breed, and Ian Opperman is one of those.
From deep telco afficionado to startup CEO, and research leader to Chief Data Scientist, Ian has been part of Australia's landscape when it comes to data-driven transformation within government. With his career harnessing a healthy dose of private sector experience (where he now calls home), his impact has been immeasurable.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
Here is another interview with an industry leader as part of our ongoing series that traces the career journey of notable change makers in the built environment - this time Adrian Piani.
Adrian has helped shape the engineering profession in Australia for more than 25 years, initially practicing in the water sector before going on to a series of public and private sector roles, including most recently the job of Chief Engineer with the ACT Government. Now back in the consulting sector, Adrian shares his views on how his career evolved into a passion for shaping change.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
In this episode of the DBA podcast we share the fourth and final session from the inaugural Digital Twin Live leadership summit, hosted by TEMPO Institute on 14 May 2024.
In this session key urban sectors come together to discuss capability, readiness and the rationale. Private sector representatives from the power, telecommunication and rail industries will explain their why, and how.
From asset ownership perspectives, to customer service perspectives. How is Digital Twin changing their ability to do more with data? But before the doing, there is the convincing to be done - the business case work, the proof of concepts, the justification. Let’s discuss.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
In this episode of the DBA podcast we share the third session from the inaugural Digital Twin Live leadership summit, hosted by TEMPO Institute on 14 May 2024.
In this session you will hear from local councils from Australia and New Zealand, as they discuss Digital Twins in urban life, through the lens of local government planning, design and service delivery.
Responsible for roads, rates and rubbish, but also tourism, economic development and frontline resilience, does Digital Twin capability present local councils an opportunity they haven’t seen before? Join us as we pull back the urban Digital Twin curtain and see what really matters for local government in Australia and New Zealand.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
In this episode of the DBA podcast we share the second session from the inaugural Digital Twin Live leadership summit, hosted by TEMPO Institute on 14 May 2024.
In this session you will hear from government Digital Twin leaders representing Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.
The goal of the session was to explore Australia as a Digital Twin nation. Is this a fanciful idea? Do we have the policy, incentives, investment and industry capabilities to deliver, and exploit this opportunity as a nation?
Let’s discuss what our States and Territories are doing, and what it means for Australia.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
In this episode of the DBA podcast we share the first session from the inaugural Digital Twin Live leadership summit, hosted by TEMPO Institute on 14 May 2024.
This first session was a one-on-one with Frankie Carroll, CEO of Suburban Rail Loop Authority in Victoria, Australia.
The discussion was titled 'Build Big; Digital Dreams' and saw DBA co-host Adam Beck walk thorugh Fankie's career history asking questions and eliciting reactions to what is an impressive resume filled with investment banking, infrastructure planning and mega-project delivery roles.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
In our first of many interviews about 'the person', Gavin interviews Dr Mark Bew MBE - CEO and Chairman. Mark has been one of the driving forces over the past 20 years in the UK around digital built construction.
The interview tracks Mark's life growing up and his passion for engineering, digital construction, harnessing inspiration from data and of course his other love - sailing. Mark shares lessons learned from his career for the next generation of digital built leaders, and offers some insights for the industry for the mid-term future.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
In this episode Gavin sit's down with Dr Ben van Deventer (Director - Industry Policy) from Infrastructure Australia, to discuss the recent work of the nation's key independent infrastructure advisor. Productivity, digital by default and building a data driven policy environment were all part of the discussion.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
Well, if you've been looking for a technical exploration of the why, what and how of master data management for your Digital Twin - look no further!
In this episode Gavin sit's down with Rennie Chadwick (Global Leader Transport & Mobility) from Cohesive based in London, to hear about his experience in developing foundational master data management systems for Digital Twins on mega projects.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
Welcome to Season 3 of the DBA podcast.
In this first episode we tackle one of the most wicked of crises currently relevant to all disciplines, industries, cities and nations - climate change.
Joining us is Sarah Kinsela, Partner at Deloitte in Climate Change and Sustainability. But Sarah is not only well versed in the topic of climate, her experience in the built environment spans financial, digital and data transformation as well.
And as a somewhat finance and policy nerd, Sarah is ideally placed to unpack the imminent showdown between Australia's mandatory climate related finacial disclosure requirements, and the built environment's ability and preparedness to access and report the necessary data.
DBA is powered by TEMPO Institute, an education platform to help drive a digital built environment.
As the year draws to a close Gavin and Adam sit down to review and discuss some key observations they made. They touch on the most recent season of the DBA podcast, where the Digital Twin marketplace is at and what's coming up in 2024.
Thank you to all DBA listeners and subscribers for supporting our efforts at TEMPO Institute.
You know what they say - junk in, junk out. That's why we decided to go deep on data (with a Digital Twin lens) and bring together two of the best in the marketplace - Michelle Teis from GWI and Patrick Bossert from Future Edge Consulting. In this conversation we cover the basics on data-fuelling platforms like Digital Twin, how we need to treat data and where we need to go. The combined experience of our guests for this episode is next level!
Two things were intriguing us at DBA, and we were keen to explore their convergence - PlanTech, and housing.
So we brought together one of Australia's leading PlanTech advisors, Clare Huxley (Gov Partners), with the driving force behind one of the most recent PlanTech success stories in government, Robert Stopajnik (Development Victoria/Digital Twin Victoria).
We hope you enjoy this dialogue on digital built meets housing, and the opportunities we have with embracing PlanTech as a force for good in our cities and communities.
The digital built environment industry has many advocates in Australia, and in Queensland more specifically, Andrew Curthoys is a notable candidate. In this special episode of the DBA podcast Adam and Gavin take the opportunity to get a debrief from Andrew on his many decades helping shape policy and projects within Queensland State Government, and what's on the horizon as he see's it for one of the nation's powerhouse regions when it comes to infrastructure, digital transformation and prosperity.
As much as it feels like AI overload right now - the articles, the webinars, the events - we wanted to check-in to see what the built environment has to say.
So we asked some friends who we consider to be close to the intersection of artificial intelligence and the built environment to join us for what we consider a 'baseline discussion'.
Both Claire Daniel (Scientia PhD Scholar UNSW) and Ollie Lock (AI Studio Director at Deloitte) had some very pragmatic things to say in our discussion that ranged from cautious excitement to prudent stewardship.
We covered everything from 'keeping up' to 'slowing down', frameworks for structured process and where the wins might be.
We kick off Season 2 of the DBA podcast in our new format, featuring multiple guests.
And first up is Jenny Tseng from Mott MacDonald and Steven Coyle from Arcadis, joining us to discuss Digital Twin.
But not before we go back and check in on BIM - its recent history and where the market is at now.
Jenny and Steven share some great insights on the amplifying effect that BIM has played in institutionalising digital and data literacy in the built environment sector, and the journey we are now on in pursing greater capability uplift with Digital Twin.
With Season 1 of the DBA podcast done, Gavin and Adam take some time to share the ideas behind the creation of TEMPO Institute, the education platform for digital built knowledge. This episode includes some reflections on the mission and purpose of TEMPO, along with some inpromptu questions thrown in from both of the co-hosts!
Carys Evans, Director of Digital Twin Victoria, has been stewarding one of the nation's leading state government-led Digital Twin initiatives. Having been underway for close to 2.5years we felt it was time to hear more about the journey. In this one-on-one interview Gavin sits down with Carys to understand more about the drivers, the methodology and critical steps along the way that has led to the programs success.Carys also shares her views on what's next and how the marketplace more broadly can embrace this capability.
We love a good story, and in this episode of the DBA podcast Gavin sits down with Serryn Eagleson (Digital Advisory Lead) from Arup to track her key moves professionally in evolving her digital and data passion. From growing up and hanging out on building sites in regional Australia to early work on the Australian Census, Serryn shares how she evolved her love of information management. With time spent across multiple sectors including national government, local government, academia and reasearch and now the private sector, Serryn both reflects on our past milestones as an industry as well as sharing her hopes for Digital Twin futures.
With legacy city data and a passion for continually evolving it's service to the community, the City of Melbourne have turned to Digital Twin as an opportunity to build capability for enhancing their sustainability and resilience agenda. In this episode Gavin chats with Sam Shaheen (Chief Data Officer) and Tegan Kop (Acting Head of Smart City Incubator) about how the City's Digital Twin journey came about, and why. With clear goals in hand and a history of digitising data and work flows, Melbourne was primmed to get the ball rolling on Digital Twin.
For a number of years now the American Planning Association (APA) has been identifying the key trends relevant to the future of the planning profession, and the practice of planning. In this episode Adam sits down with Petra Hurtado, APA's Director of Research and Foresight, to talk about the introduction of Digital Twins in the APA 2023 Trend Report for Planners. They discuss the future of the planning profession in light of Digital Twin advancements, the opportunities, the barriers and journey ahead.
High Speed (Rail) 2 (HS2) in the UK has been years in the making, with many more to come - so how is the digital transformation process going on one of the UK's largest infrastructure projects? In this episode Gavin sits down with Dr Sonia Zahiriddony who is Interim Chief Information Officer with HS2 Ltd, to discuss the latest insights on the project's digital transformation process. Having dedicated much of her career to applying her computer and information sciences background to the construction industry, her insights on applying data management, modelling and analysis processes to this heroic infrastructure project are both practical and inspirational.
With momentum building on the 'digital by default' narrative across the infrastructure policy landscape in Australia, the question must be asked - "how do we measure, report and hold ourselves accountable to this idea?" In this episode Adam chats with Sara Stace, Director of Cities at WSP in Australia. Throughout the course of the conversation Sara digs into insights about building the necessary elements of successful national infrastructure policy, how digital intersects with mainstream infrastructure and what types of leadership and governance arrangements may be required. Sara also shares her tips for effective industry engagement and how success might be realised.
Gavin heads back to New Zealand for this episode and sits down with Stacey Young (Chief Information Officer) and Brenda Pottinger (Data and Information Governance Manager) from Marlborough District Council. Marlborough is located on the top end of the southern island of New Zealand, and is a place one would not immediately consider fertile ground for Digital Twin action. With Blenheim as its main population centre (approx. 30,000), Marlborough is made up of many villages and towns, scattered throughout a predominantly agricultural landscape. Gavin gets to the bottom of how and why Council embarked on their Digital Twin journey and analyses with Stacey and Brenda the lessons learned in getting started.
Before we design and construct digitally, we plan. Or do we? In this episode Adam chats with Nicole Benetts, Senior Planner at Arup, and a digital and data enthusiest who shares her views on the level of readiness of the planning profession as our tools, techniques and aspirations become more digital. Nicole highlights some very real challenges for the planning profession as our cities and communities contine to undergo digital transformation. From culture to time frames to willingness to embrace change. Join us for this engaging discussion.
In this episode of the DBA podcast Adam brings Gavin into the interview room to hear about the recent launch of the Digital Twin Partnership (DTP) - Why it formed, what's it's vision and how will it operate? As Gavin unpacks these questions for our listeners it is possible to see how an organisation like this is fundamental to helping consolidate the emerging interest and bring the Digital Twin community together. Listen along if you are keen to understand the fundamentals around the DTP.
In this episode Adam chat's with Greta McNelis, GIS and BIM Manager at Brisbane Airport Corporation. We go behind the scenes of what the airport is putting in place to build not only a high performing portfolio of built assets, but also digital assets. To Brisbane Airport Corporation, their digital assets form a critical part of their existing operations. But more importantly, as they expand their portfolio of products and services, its the data sharing relationship with external stakeholders that possibly fuels their Digital Twin future.
In this episode Adam invites Keri Niven onto the show to discuss the intersections of digital engineering and Digital Twin. Keri is Digital Practice Leader in New Zealand for Aurecon and takes in her stride some challenging questions that few tackle, like "if we are doing digital engineering, aren't we doing Digital Twin?" Keri shares some great perspectives not only on the capabilities of digital engineering and twins, but also on how government and industry in New Zealand could approach the process of institutionalising action.
In this episode Gavin chats with Kat Salm, Digital Solutions Lead at Harrison Grierson, where they break down the major pieces of New Zealand's Digital Twin Journey. They discuss the macro drivers, layers of governance and some core values behind data management in New Zealand. For New Zealand, Kat shares issues around the nation's unique vulnerability to natural disasters like earthquakes, and how this continues to be a driver for innovation in infrastructure delivery and services provision. And with nature oblivious to jurisdictional boundaries, the Digital Twin opportunities across government boarders and up and down the levels of government present an ongoing opportunity for collaboration.
In this episode Gavin brings in Andra Christie, Solutions Architect with AWS, to explore the behind the scenes of Digital Twin use cases. A conversation evolves around what makes a good use case, when they should be developed and what the broader context is with respect to Digital Twin vision, strategy, roadmap and business case. And in the spirit of mobilising efforts to get Digital Twin action underway, Andra shares multiple tips on how to kick things off in a way that is meaningful and outcomes focussed, is right-sized for your organisation and be set up for scale.
In this episode Gavin takes on all things geospatial and Digital Twins with Catherine Hill (Senior Consultant Digital Solutions, Cities and Places at Jacobs) and Helli Kotasek (Section Lead - Digital and Spatial at Veris). Our guests start out with sharing some insights on their respective geospatial careers and what in the data world has remained unchanged and fundamental, and those data conditions that have become more dynamic. Catherine and Helli also share some of their most recent experiences in practically building from GIS foundations and carrying this capability into the Digital Twin world.
In this Episode Adam sit's down for a debrief with Alexandra Bolton, the Executive Director of the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB). The CDBB was a driving force for global digital twin inspiration in its 5yrs of operation (2017-2022). Alexandra discusses the origins of the CDBB, it's work, the role that partnerships played and her views on what's next for digital built environment activity globally.
In this Episode Adam is joined by Kate Williams, Chief Business Officer at FrontierSI, to unpack the often asked question - "what is a digital twin?" Adam's co-host of the podcast Gavin Gotterill joins in on disucssion to share some views. Together the team cover digital twin definitions, debunk some myths and identify what's coming (or should come next).
In this Episode Adam and Gavin discuss the background to the Digital Built Australia podcast and why 'now' is a critical time to advance our understanding of digital twin, share what is happening and explore why some things are not.
Welcome to the Digital Built Australia podcast, hosted by Adam Beck and Gavin Cotterill. In this introduction to the podcast we provide a short overview of what to expect in the coming months, and beyond. We hope you enjoy the dialogue.