Opinion

Dot Everyone – especially engineers

John Horgan,  AECOM

Digital development is at the root of everything engineers and construction professionals do now. We have to be at the heart of setting the future agenda and shaping the UK's role in the digital world, says AECOM’s John Horgan.

Baroness Martha Lane Fox - founder of lastminute.com - has made a compelling case for DOT EVERYONE – a national institution to make the UK the most digital nation on the planet. This independent organisation would have a strong mandate from government, as well as the public.

As citizens, we would have a role in setting its agenda, informing it and taking part in it. DOT EVERYONE would address digital exclusion, gender inequality in technology and the moral and ethical issues the Internet presents, as well as show what is possible when you put the Internet at the heart of design.

"When designing vital infrastructure such as hospitals, our focus is on how the built environment can support patient needs and clinical outcomes rather than where the windows should go.  Line speeds, storage media and data security are becoming increasingly pivotal to what we do. It is why our industry must play a role in DOT EVERYONE."

The Internet has transformed the construction and engineering industry. It’s the fuel that’s fed digital innovation, from Building Information Modelling (BIM) through to 3-D printing. That’s why I am calling for everyone working in the built environment to get behind DOT EVERYONE, sign the Baroness’s petition and support this transformational vision.

Our industry solves some of the most complex technical challenges known to humanity because of digital innovation. From Managed Motorways to high-speed trains, we depend completely on digital. Certainly at AECOM, we collaborate every day across continents in complex design and build activities on a real-time basis because of the Internet.  

Digital enables us to make sense of data – the lifeblood of our industry. Isolated data is about as helpful as the score of a symphony that’s been put through a shredding machine. It’s all there but in an unusable form.

Take BIM, for example. Its power is that, when properly applied, it can harness the design and construction process so that the pitfalls, assembly difficulties, safety risks, costs, and programmatic inputs and outputs are all understood in a single process. It holds the key to transforming Big Data from a concept into a manageable, exploitable asset that benefits us all.

Crucially, digital technology has changed the nature of our conversations with clients and their stakeholders through the insight it affords. It enables us to understand an asset so that we can design and maintain it, embedding our clients’ objectives at the core so they can derive maximum value at lower cost and with faster, more predictable outcomes.

When designing vital infrastructure such as hospitals, our focus is on how the built environment can support patient needs and clinical outcomes rather than where the windows should go. This would never have been possible without digital technology. Line speeds, storage media and data security are becoming increasingly pivotal to what we do. It is why our industry must play a role in DOT EVERYONE.

Gone are the blueprints and slide rules thanks to digital. But further change is afoot, and we must start planning now for its impact on our industry. As 3-D printing and robots become the norm, it’s vital we prepare the next generation of engineers for designing in this dynamic, rapidly changing environment. The more we understand the Internet, the better equipped we are to make informed decisions about the future of our industry.

Britain led the industrial revolution, and there is no reason why we cannot be the most advanced digital society anywhere. Everything from education to data ownership, from broadband speeds to privacy, needs a proper national plan, and this initiative is an opportunity to participate.

2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, the document widely upheld as one of the first examples of the rule of law, so it is surely fitting this is also the year that DOT EVERYONE is formed to help navigate our digital world.

Our industry depends on the infrastructure, regulation and efficiency of the web but, equally, as informed citizens we should seize the opportunity to shape the digital world as it shapes us. Imagine the legacy we would leave future generations.

DOT EVERYONE? Count me in.

John Horgan is deputy CEO, EMEA & India, AECOM

You can sign the online petition at www.change.org/p/the-uk-prime-minister-create-dot-everyone-a-public-institution-for-the-digital-age.