Introduce Yourself

[Samuel A Chorlton]

Welcome to the Digital Twin Hub. The Digital Twin Hub will provide an essential mechanism to progress our understanding and application of Digital Twins. We are extremely fortunate to have amongst our members some of leading experts in this field and a safe space in which to discuss our success and failures.

It would be great know a little more about our members so here are some questions to get us going:

• Who are you?
• What is your industry and profession?
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?

[Peter El Hajj]

• Who are you?  civil engineer with research experience in data-driven asset management and work experience in infrastructure finance and public private partnerships
• What is your industry and profession?  built environment and infrastructure - adviser
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?  Support the delivery of a national digital twin that delivers benefits for all  
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?  Interesting and diverse community.  Curiosity! 
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?  yes, joined couple of webinars.  Really enjoyed the openness of the discussions and I look forward to more 
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?  optimising my route to work!  I look forward to seeing example of integrated digital twins.
  
  @SimonEvans   @Neil Thomspon @Ian Gordon   next? ?

[Neil Thompson]

• Who are you? I'm a technologist and economist with experience in implementing technology at most stages of a built asset lifecycle. I also have experience in commercial strategy and construction economics.
• What is your industry and profession? Technology, engineering (member of the IET) in the built environment and chartered construction manager.  I also straddle practice with research via an Associate Professor role at University College London.
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? Both, I cofounded the Digital Twin Fan Club community for fun, and lucky enough to contribute to the NDTP.  I'm also VC of the TechUK Digital Twin Working Group and I am keen to connect our community.
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? I want to connect with fellow practitioners, learn from trail blazers and make change happen!
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? Yes.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? I've been working with a group of people via SafetiBase on creating a data trust for sharing risk data, I think its a great example of what twins could achieve... making the built environment a safe place to work!

[Sarah Hayes]

• I’m Sarah Hayes, I'm an economist specialised in data, digital twins and infrastructure regulation
• I wrote Data for the public good, the National Infrastructure Commission report which recommended the creation of the Information Management Framework and the National Digital Twin
• I lead the Change Stream of the CDBB National Digital Twin programme so I hope to learn from this community how we can best break down the barriers to sharing data
• I’ve joined the DTHub because I want to see how digital twin thinking is evolving and to connect with those who want to get involved in the National Digital Twin programme
• I’m keen to see a city digital twin pilot happen and to work with those already developing regional and city twins

[Tom Hughes]

Who are you? I'm Tom Hughes, the delivery lead for the Digital Twin Hub.

What is your industry and profession? I am a Civil Engineer that followed a passion of using technology to do my job more efficiently into a career of helping others to do the same. When I'm not working on the Digital Twin Hub I am the Head of Project Technology at Mott MacDonald.

Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? Personally am looking forward to data being used for the public good; both in terms of better and more efficient services, and a sustainable natural environment. Professionally it has renewed my focus on project technology that can efficiently deliver non-graphical information. 

Why have you decided to join the DTHub? It is the most exciting place to be in the transformation of the built environment sector! It has been a real privilege to have been a part of it from the start.  

Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? Every one that my calendar has allowed me to be. I am biased, but I think they have been fantastic.

Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? There are excellent examples of work that has done by colleagues at Mott MacDonald but I will let the people responsible for these share them. I would encourage all members to share case studies of their work on the Hub.  

[AccuCities]

Who are you?  I am a self-confessed 3D mapping nerd, capturing 3D city models all my professional life. Director of AccuCities, a 3D city modelling agency based in London.

What is your industry and profession?  Built environment, planning and architecture - SME director.

Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?  Support the research, development and delivery of a 3D city models supporting the aims of the national digital twin.  

Why have you decided to join the DTHub?  DTHub is certainly one of very few places where the national digital twin can be discussed and developed. Looking forward to have conversations about formats, futureproofing and applications.

Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?  Not yet, looking forward to catch up on few recommended webinars & case studies.

Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? AccuCities works on many digital twins projects, aimed at architecture and planning. Please have a look at https://www.accucities.com/customers-case-studies/

 

 

[Adam Jennison]

• Who are you? Adam Jennison - Leading Hull City Council's Smart City implementation - think of me as a bit of a thinker but mostly a doer - I implement the strategy & vision of others 
• What is your industry and profession? Developer & ICT project manager but a huge focus on all things data, in a previous life I was a builder so just love buildings
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? Professionally Hull has ambitions to take the real-time data from our Smart City platform to feed into a local digital twin, which we expect will then feed into a Regional and National Digital Twin.  Our aim is digitise as much of the City as possible to provide accurate simulations for "what-if scenario planning" as well as future modelling.
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? Digital Twins are relatively new and provide a huge leap forward in providing plug and play way of trialling things out and modelling the "whole" rather than small geographic areas.
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? Yes, they've been informative and enjoyable 🙂
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? Not yet but we're part of the recent SlingshotSimulation's successful Innovate UK bid for phase 1 funding of a Regional Digital Twin covering Hull City Council, Leeds City Council and York City Council.  This will initially focus on the building and transport layer.  We will be providing GIS layers, bulk datasets (such as Origin/Destination information) as well as real-time feeds such as SCOOT loop vehicle movement and parking.
  We very much see that in time a digital twin will become a required system for every LA, we've already taken the decision to purchase a Smart City platform to allow us to get maximum reuse of data from internal and partner systems as well as the expected avalanche of IoT and citizen created data that describes the place we live. This platform will provide the additional evidence to augment the move to 'evidence based decision making' and where possible and safe to do so some of the decisions will be automated. Machine learning/AI is another topic that is part of our roll out plan but we'll not discuss that here.
  
  A digital twin is the natural progression for this Smart City data - we can plug the data into a digital twin and run simulations, see if it responds as the real-world does and tweak until we get a working model of the City.  From then we can look at effects of an action (e.g. road closure, new housing, etc) propagate across the City.
  
  We're also looking at fractal digital twins where possible -i.e. digital twins of buildings feeding into the City digital twin, zooming in and in.. 🙂
  
  Everything above will also help with the carbon reduction agenda - it's all exciting but ultimately it requires data - and real time data hence our Smart City platform and strategy.
  
  If anyone wants to chat about Smart Cities/DTs then feel free to contact me - adam.jennison@hullcc.gov.uk 

[Guest]

• Who are you?  Ntando Sibanda 
• What is your industry and profession?  Construction Project Manager 
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? Currently doing my MBA part-time  with interest in digital innovation /my research topic :Evaluate the feasibility of Digital Twin application  for progress monitoring in UK civil engineering construction sector.
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?  :to gain insights on Digital Twins 
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? Yes.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? :No

[Tim Goodwin]

• Who are you? Tim Goodwin
• What is your industry and profession?
  I am Senior Solutions Consultant for Virtalis and I’ve been working in the VR/Visualisation sector for nearly 25 years.
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?
  The digital twin is something we have worked on for many years at differing levels of complexity and use cases. How to layer the different data sources into a unified visualisation to aid communication is vital.
  On a personal level, I always loved the ‘size of the earth to universe’ animations as we zoom out from the park to the city, to the country, to the earth until we disappear completely. When I look at the digital twin on a countrywide scale, I see that same idea where I can just keep zooming in and looking at more and more focussed items of interest. The downside, I could see myself losing many hours getting distracted. 🙂
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?
  There are so many different use cases built in isolation that brought together could truly improve how we work together to improve the country. The challenge is to bring these together from the public and private sector to make it beneficial to all. I think the DTHub is key in bringing together this data and understanding and shaping where we are heading. Whilst the early stages are key in planning that framework, I do see our software GeoVisionary as a perfect tool to provide the platform to visualise these massive disparate data sets.
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?
  I have been to one in person and a few webinars.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?
  Whilst we have worked on many digital twins over the years from full ship to maintenance training of household goods, the more relevant in scope are conducted by our users. Our partner in developing GeoVisionary is the British Geological Survey. On a countrywide (and global) level, they are using it visualise huge amounts of data to analyse coastal erosion, geothermal power, urban geology, flooding, city planning among many use cases. Some examples can be found here.
  
  https://www.bgs.ac.uk/geology-projects/3d-visualisation-systems/

[Ben Francis]

• Who are you? Ben Francis
• What is your industry and profession? I'm a Software Engineer and Founder of Krellian, a new UK-based tech startup providing smart building solutions. I have previously worked at Mozilla and Google.
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? I am a W3C Invited Expert on the Web of Things and founder of the WebThings IoT platform, which was recently spun out as an independent open source project after four years of incubation at Mozilla. Krellian provides smart building solutions, including our own products and services, and a consultancy service specialising in the Web of Things.
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? I learned about the DTHub from a post of the W3C WoT Interest Group's mailing list and it sounded very relevant to my work on smart buildings and the Web of Things.
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? Not yet, I just joined today.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? WebThings Gateway powers thousands of private smart homes around the world and the WebThings Framework provides a collection of re-usable software components to help developers build their own web things (connected digital twins) in a dozen different programming languages. I am currently exploring enterprise use cases of the WebThings platform, including for digital signage and building automation.

If you think there's a way that Krellian could help you research, design, prototype or implement a digital twin based on W3C WoT standards, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Edited March 8, 2021 by Ben Francis

[David M Price]

• Who are you? David Price working for TopQuadrant
• What is your industry and profession? I am a data analyst/solution architect working to apply Linked Data/Semantic/Knowledge Grap technologies in a variety of industries (Defence, Pharma, Oil and Gas, Infrastructure). In a former job, I worked directly on national and international data exchange standards.
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? Professionally to understand DT more deeply to decide where we might hhelp
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? Saw IET even and got interested again after working on EU R&D project that ended in 2017
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? No.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? Lead the TopQuadrant team in the V-Con EY R&D project 2015-2017 doing pre-commercial development of the use of Linked Data/Semantic technolgoy aimed at integrating Infrastructure data across discplines.

[Robert Prince-Wright]

Who are you?  I'm Robert, occasionally Bob, an engineer with several Patents from my time working in Shell USA.   

What is your industry and profession?  I work in the oil & gas industry, and have a wide range of R&D, Design and Operations experience. My first degree was Civil Engineering at Imperial College, and my second degree was probabilistic modelling for compliant offshore structures at The University of Glasgow. I ended up working in Technical Safety soon after the Piper Alpha disaster and have authored several complex studies and platform Safety Cases. For the past few years I've provided Systems Safety Engineering consulting support to O&G operators and service companies.

Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?  My company Berkeley & Imperial has been developing tools to perform virtual system simulation, software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop testing. These models are networked and deployed across the internet. Our ultimate goal is to create full lifecycle Digital Twins. 

Why have you decided to join the DTHub?  As a company we are seeking learning, partners and consulting opportunities.  

Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?  Not yet but will do soon. 

Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?  Yes - depending on how you define Digital Twin.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Robert Prince-Wright
typo

[Mostafa]

• Who are you?  Mostafa Elashmawy, Egyptian living in Saudi Arabia. 
• What is your industry and profession?  AEC, A BIM Manager with experience on applying BIM in large size construction projects. 
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?  The use of BIM for Asset management and operation in my projects. Also will use it in my DBA research. 
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?  Broaden my knowledge about Digital Twins. 
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?  Not yet.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?  Not yet.

[Guest]

Hi everyone! Pleased to meet you all and I look forward to warm and exciting conversations on Digital Twins!

• Who are you?  Regional Director working for the Singapore Government, exploring collaboration opportunities between government as well as corporates.
• What is your industry and profession?  Government - investment promotion
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?  Support the various sectors in Singapore in developing and adopting digital twin technology
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?  Interesting and diverse community.  Curiosity! Also access to the materials and plublications from this knowledge base
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?  Yes, I have joined couple of webinars.  
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?  Not yet

[asalazaz]

Hello everybody:

I'm Anderson. I'm a research engineer in a university. We have a group which works with an energy utility. They want to build a digitl twin of their distribution power infrastructure. We are starting to understand the components of a digital twin, the tools requiered, the enabling technologies, etc.

I am very much looking forward to find useful resources in this community.

Very best regards for all.

[forrist]

• Who are you? My name is Forrist Tanner Lytehaause. I am a Partner and Director of a cooperative for social good named Planetary C.A.R.E. (Collaboration for Agriculturally Regenerative Engagement)
• Industry: Global Regenerative Agriculture and the Food and Fiber from these crops.
• Who is Planetary C.A.R.E. and what do you provide: We are a values aligned gated community functioning as a global commons. We provide members with digital and human technology including Infrastructure as a Service, Food as a Service and Community as a Service.  
• Profession: Comprehensivist
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Professionally, to enhance our staff knowhow and re-use aligned models and templates 
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? As an enterprise, we are seeking learning, partners and consulting opportunities. The diverse membership across multiple areas is appealing. 
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?  Not yet.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?  No. I'm a member of a team building various spaces comprised of virtual twins and customer journey artifacts toward enabling a deeper connection between the future stakeholder and the food manufacturing sector innovation solution providing ability for 100s of millions of SMEs to enter the food industry. 

[Guest]

Hello,

• Who are you? My name is Chandrashekhar Kabanur, Indian, living in Bangalore, India.
• What is your industry and profession?  Railway signalling domain (systems/software/installation/customer interface) with Alstom in India, UK, Belgium and Netherlands. Now exploring freelancing.
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?  for application in Rail industry. Initially personally, later if successful, professionally.
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?  Knowledge base and diverse community.
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?  Not yet, just joined.  
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?  Not yet, I have a very basic, initial idea for rail twinning.

 

[PtrickTk]

• Patrick Tak. I'm living in the Netherlands and working at EGM architecten in Dordrecht as IT admin and innovation manager
• We're working as an architecture firm specialized in Healthcare. We do other projects in other sectors like goverment, leasure
• We see a trend in our projects. Clients are thinking about BIM and connecting the data and geometry to their excisting FMS. We want to see if we can provide the model for the FMS
• This site and group of people seem to know more than I do, so let's hear from eachother
• No, just joined the platform
• We've done some proof of concept projects to incorporate our own building in research projects. We did some simulation testing to see how traffic changes inside our office.

[Simon Innovate UK]

• Who are you?

Simon Hart, Lead on Cros Sector Digital Twins and Head of Construction at Innovate UK (UK Government's Innovation Agency)

• What is your industry and profession?

Central Government Innovation. My original profession is Electronics and Software Engineering.

• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?

We're looking to develop a long term UK Digital Twin programme to support R&D, Skills and commercialisation of DT's

• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?

I was part of the team that setup CDBB in 2016.

• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?

Yes.

• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?

Yes, I setup CDBB in 2016 with BEIS and the BIM Task Group. My organisation is currently funding ~50 DT projects through R&D grants.

[Guest]

• Who are you? Aaron Atkinson, BIM engineer at John Sisk
• What is your industry and profession? Construction
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? Both
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? to learn more about DT
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? No
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? No

[Andrew Munn]

• Who are you? Hi, I am Andrew Munn. I work as a Asset Data Manager for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive in Belfast.
• What is your industry and profession? I work in the Social Housing sector and we provide around 85,000 homes to the whole of Northern Ireland via GOV.
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? I need to bring my organisation on this journey, we have 3000 employees, so far it is only me 😞 
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? I've been following the hubreally since January, my career has been based in the introduction of ISO standards, I have been studying this area in my role as an Asset Data Manager.
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? I have caught up with all the Gemini Calls and try to check in weekly, this is so informative. The format is just fantastic. Having traced to the start it was great to watch grow and you get to feel like you know everyone! Really this is my next 'reaching out point' and today I am hoping to get in touch with Local Government Housing Providers within the U.K.? 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Andrew Munn

[Peter Foxley]

Who are you? I’m Peter Foxley, a guy who has just come across the NDT Hub – this just may be the home I’ve been searching for - a vibrant platform on which we can communicate with a view to making a real difference!

 

What is your industry and profession? In truth, an ageing railway professional (for further details please see https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-foxley-6422b6143/?originalSubdomain=uk), born with an entrepreneurial spirit and positive outlook, even when some of those great ideas haven’t quite panned out!

 

Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? I guess it’s both, as it recently dawned on me that I’ve always been a seeker of the right Information, at the right time, to analyse and make evidence- or risked-based decisions, throughout my professional career. ALIM Systems is our new business venture, which is built around industry know-how, promoting new ways of working for the System of Systems, enabled by tailored technology and supported by people, to derive better asset delivery and whole-of-life performance outcomes.

 

Why have you decided to join the DTHub? We are totally aligned with the Vision for the built environment and the NDT goals, and are pretty passionate about improving the outcomes and expected benefits to our frequently disappointed end-users. However, this will need a serious shift in the industry’s slow changing mindset to measuring value against outcomes, rather than work scope – which is where I believe this exciting forum can lend its guiding hand!  

 

Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? Just started and I’m impressed, and I intend to actively participate moving forward.

 

Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? I have a couple of examples of work we can share:

 

Infrastructure Asset Systems: Information Management requires a step-change in approach – this Perspective formed the basis of a Presentation we gave at an Asian Development Bank Knowledge Sharing Event in October 2020

https://mgbil.box.com/s/33f8hossu4pwwhn2fslqydorhi6mh0nm;

Case Study: Ho Chi Minh Urban Construction Project: Urban Railway Line 1, a 19.7-km line linking Ben Thanh and Suoi Tien

https://mgbil.box.com/s/d6kxcc1waacfcm0czo0y2gx0tnd87dta

Edited May 25, 2021 by Peter Foxley

[frank doherty]

• Who are you? Frank Doherty, and I work wholly in Scotland
• What is your industry and profession? I work in construction, and am a chartered surveyor with too many years experience in building standards, currently working with Scottish Governments Building Standards Division, leading on digital strategy
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? Professionally, to improve the level of compliance with statutory standards (the minimum which should be achieved) for health, safety, wellbeing and energy efficiency in buildings.
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? As with most things in life, you have to be in it, to win it. If we want to reap the benefits of digital twins as a society, we need to start with basic requirements, and building regulations set those for physical buildings.
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? Yes, webinars. Well, we are still in a pandemic, and they are all the rage just now!
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? Not yet, no, but see a future where digital twins could hold accessible information on compliance with statutory requirements of building regulations.

[Ajeeth]

• Who are you?

A Software Engineer ideating on a project to encourage students to take TEAMS(Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths and Science) subjects by using AR/VR/MR based of the theme of space exploration and technology. [Looking for fellow travellers to embark on an exciting voyage to make education really fun and exciting using DT! Hit me if you are interested]

• What is your industry and profession?

I am a Software Engineer and previously worked for companies such as Intel and Nokia (and many exciting tech startups)

• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally?

Planning to use DT to make education fun-tastic using AR/VR/MR!

• Why have you decided to join the DTHub?

To learn, contribute and innovate.

• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events?

Not yet. Just joined today. But registered for a DTHub online event organised on 1st July at 8:30am

• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins?

Not yet. But hope to use DT to make positive impact for social good.

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Ajeeth
Fixed type.

[Guest]

• Who are you? Software developer and founder of EarthEye LTD, a new UK-based startup developing cutting-edge, novel algorithms to automate the generation of semantic 3D building models at a cheaper price.
• What is your industry and profession? Software developer and AI research assistant at the University of Nottingham.  I am young and ambitious and have worked in industry for 3 years alongside my academic pursuits.  
• Where do you plan to use your new Digital Twin Knowledge? Personally/professionally? I would like to see how my own research fits into the wider DT research context and see how I can support the aims of the National Twin Programme. 
• Why have you decided to join the DTHub? I would like to come together with fellow practitioners and see how our work at EarthEye can bring value to various stakeholders and the community at large. If anyone has any input into how the models we create can be used to generate value, or for anything else, please feel free to contact me at joemcgirr89@gmail.com,
• Have you participated in any of our meetups, or events? No, but I have applied to the DAFNI launch event on the 5th.
• Do you have any examples of work that you have done using Digital Twins? At EarthEye, we used digital twins we created in Zurich to provide the dimensions of a roof. These dimensions were then fed into a quotation system to autogenerate a roof resurfacing quote remotely for roofers who are unable to visit the property in person, due to COVID restrictions.