Speech by Mr. Victor Lam, JP, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer, at the “Building Information Modeling (BIM) Forum 2018”
Mr KW (CHEN) , distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning! It is my pleasure to join you at today’s Building Information Modeling (BIM) Forum 2018 with the theme of “Inspiring Our Future in Digitalization and Integration”. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Hong Kong for your endeavour in organising this meaningful event and promoting the adoption of BIM technology.
Innovative technology has been transforming the construction sector worldwide. As you should know, BIM enables engineering professionals to design and build in virtual environments, providing a platform for optimising the design, execution and operation of building structures in digital representation of physical and functional characteristics. BIM opens a new door to building projects to allow project perception and performance evaluation before actual construction, thereby resolving potential problems and issues at the early stage, thus achieving significant saving of time and cost and reducing project risks.
The Government has published the Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong in December 2017, mapping out our development plans up to 2022 and beyond with more than 70 initiatives. Promoting the adoption of BIM is one of our Smart City initiatives. In fact, the Government has taken steps to gradually support using BIM as a mandatory requirement for building projects. After piloting BIM in our projects, the Government has adopted the technology in the design and construction of major government capital works projects starting from this year. Consultants and contractors undertaking the design and construction works for these projects are now required to use BIM. We will also collaborate with the Construction Industry Council (CIC) to strengthen BIM training for related professionals, develop relevant technical standards and guidelines, and encourage the use of BIM in private construction projects.
To help the industry adopt innovative construction technologies such as BIM, CIC has set up the Construction Innovation and Technology Application Centre in November 2017 to introduce the latest technologies. The Government has also set aside HK$1 billion in the 2018-19 Budget for the establishment of the Construction Innovation and Technology Fund to provide the impetus to transform our local construction industry through automation, industrialisation and digitisation. BIM is one of the pre-approved technologies for the fund.
In addition to BIM, Common Spatial Data Infrastructure (CSDI) is another crucial building block for smart city development on the construction industry front. At present, different government departments and individual public and private organisations collect and maintain their own sets of spatial data. If these datasets are compiled in accordance with sets of agreed standards and definitions, not only will they facilitate the use by the general public, but also enhance efficiency of our city management. The Development Bureau, in collaboration with the relevant government bureaux/departments, will establish the CSDI for sharing spatial data. A consultancy study on the strategy development of CSDI was commissioned in 2017 with the objective to formulate the related strategy to develop an information infrastructure to share spatial data across government departments as well as public and private organisations. Our goal is to ensure the accuracy, interoperability and updatedness of spatial data to support the development of smart applications in the community.
The Smart City Blueprint is just the start of the journey. Building a smart city is a multifaceted task. All of us will have to put in efforts and work smarter together to make our city more liveable and sustainable. I wish the forum every success and all the participants a very rewarding event today. Thank you very much.
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