What happens when you put a bunch of digital wizards in a room to go head to head with construction professionals?
No, you don’t get flash-bang-wallops followed by the sound of croaking frogs.
You get Scotland’s first construction ‘hackathon’, a sort of professional speed dating event for techs and builders.
The event took place in Glasgow with 65 participants working on finding digital solutions to construction challenges.
Of course, you only have to look at the variety of construction vacancies on s1jobs to know building methods are constantly changing to create energy efficient homes and offices faster than ever.
But where does this construction technology come from?
Ryan Tennyson, one of the hackathon organisers, points out: “The concept of hackathons as a way of unlocking new ideas and digital solutions may be relatively new in the construction industry, but they have been used in the tech industry for close to a decade.
“They expose talented software developers, data scientists, web designers and gamers to opportunities in an alternative sector, while giving construction industry professionals a glimpse into what can be achieved through involving different people, technologies and skillsets.”
How many late night pizzas they got through is not known, but during the course of the hackathon five concepts were developed with the gong for Best Overall Innovation at Hack_Construct going to a digital built heritage tool.
This combines cloud servers with the latest gaming technology to link sources of information and encourage new content.
According to its developers, the tool seeks to reveal the spirit of a place by linking people, stories, and heritage information into one accessible platform.
Erm . . . okay. To put it another way, it recognises old buildings aren’t just about bricks and mortar but the people who have used them over the centuries, including any ghosts hanging around today.
And ghosts may yet pop up to have their say. The winning team led by Edinburgh architect Natasha Huq is going to trial the tool in the Edinburgh World Heritage Twelve Closes Project – located in one of the most haunted parts of the capital.
The Construction Scotland Innovation Centre is working with the team to take the project forward and its Chief Executive Stephen Good says: “The construction industry is changing, and finding digital solutions to problems is key to the industry moving with the times.
“Hackathons are a fantastic way to harness innovative ideas such as this one, and to demonstrate to the construction industry just what can be achieved.”
And every great new idea in construction means a brand new opportunity to build your career.