Institute of Construction Materials | ICONSMAT

So in this episode, the first episode of the new season from the ICONSMAT podcast, we want to talk about the correlation between automation and employment, the effect that each one has on the other, and also if we are actually moving toward a construction industry where robots are taking place more than humans. 

Without a doubt, if you have ever worked in the construction industry, and by that, I mean the actual physical hard labour, you should have an understanding of the pain, muscle soreness, back pain, and all the health risks that are associated with a typical construction work, then you would probably vote for more automation in construction.

In summary of this season in 2021, we have recorded and edited 19 episodes and tried to discuss some of the modern issues of the construction industry today. Not only issues, but more importantly, we have introduced some of the novel emerging technologies and incentives such as sorting machines, blockchain, and many more. 

We hope to catch you on again next year!

The idea is to circulate money in a given economy at any size. Some wealthy people have a bigger circle that contains a larger population and on the other side, the less wealthy individuals have a smaller circle under their arms. It all depends on how YOU are satisfied with your life as an entrepreneur or business owner. If you are operating a business, you definitely have some employees working for you. Small businesses, typically don't have control over the amount of salary they pay and the way that the salary is spent by the employee. However, the economist needs to know how the salary paid is spent because he thrives to run an economy. Control over money in other words is essential to his duty. He wants to know how much people spend on goods and services. And that is what drives the context of economic growth in an industry.

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Corporations, because of their huge impact over many aspects of the economy in which they are operating, are bound with some set of morale to minimize the risk in case something or someone in the system goes wrong. This very term that is the word "wrong" is actually something that the corporation must decide and draw the red line around such behaviours that trigger the definition of being wrong. Companies and big corporations, often outline priorities of value. Some may go safety, wellbeing, and technology; the other one may go technology, science, and media, meanwhile, another company may outline profitability as its most appreciated value. However, the greed for money had always been proved to be the turning point of companies that were one day on top of the chart. Enron scandal is one of the most famous examples of accounting fraud in history. Enron used off-balance-sheet entities to hide the company's debts from investors and creditors. Although using such entities was not illegal in itself, Enron's failure to disclose the necessary details of its dealings constituted accounting fraud. As the true extent of Enron's debts became known to the public, its share price collapsed. By the end of 2001, Enron declared bankruptcy. And it is also interesting to know that before declaring bankruptcy, Enron's share value was priced at $90, and at the time of collapse, it was priced only 26 cents per share. In the year 2000 it had recorded a revenue of more than 100 billion dollars. So, in affirmation to what was said before, it is always good to follow a set of ethical principles. A well-established ethical guideline must be in a direction to ensure the maximum return to the society. It is the only way to keep operating a healthy and prosperous company. 

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The truth is we are living in the blockchain world today. It is a world that computers run us humans rather than being vice versa. I don't know if you can imagine living in a world without a display screen in a normal day of your life. So, this world of blockchain network is somehow indicating us to change the way we are operating in business. If you look at the top three wealthiest companies in the world, they are Apple, Microsoft, and amazon following by Google and Facebook. All being tech companies. I've used my calculator to add up the total accumulative market cap that these five companies hold and the sum was above 8 Trillion dollars. Now if you want to compare this amount with countries GDP, you can buy the whole of Japan and Germany together with 8 trillion dollars. And the funny fact is these two countries are the third and the fourth biggest economies in the world. The first and second being the US and China. So you've got the scale.

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It was a truly weird year in 2020 for the global education system during the COVID pandemic. Students disappeared from the campuses, the whole system had shifted to the online delivery mode, universities had fallen massively short with millions of dollars in deficit, and thousands of university staff had lost their jobs as a consequence. Yet, when you talked to students they were not unhappy as staff and the top managers in the uni. Most of them were actually happy that they no longer need to commute the long distances from home to the uni for a 2-hour class, for example. However, if you take a deeper look at the quality of education pre and post COVID, it is simply easy to spot some of the obvious downfalls in the online delivery mode. In construction courses particularly, there are many units that have practical laboratory sessions regulated in their module. Indeed, it is known that the most effective way of learning is based upon experiencing the theories. Soil mechanic labs, concrete testing lessons, materials labs, and many more had shifted to online delivery mode by watching videos in the COVID pandemic. Students can't simply learn the way, for example, soil interacts under different moisture contents just by watching a video. Videos won't make professional engineers. Of course it is in the benefit of universities, financial wise, as the cost to run and supply the necessities for laboratories are eliminiated in this model of delivery. Nevertheless, online education is a factual phenomenon. So let's run a comprehensive SWOT analysis on this. That is our position in terms of Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that we are exposed to as a consequence of online education delivery.

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This episode is solely dedicated to the upcoming 4th international webinar on construction materials. As you might already know this year following our tradition from the past 4 years, we are hosting presentation sessions for 7 of the well-known research scholars in the corresponding discipline which is construction materials indeed. But let's go one step back, why should you, as an academic or engineering enthusiast, attend in such webinars at all? Basically speaking, our humanoid brain degrades in its ability to remain up to date with the latest technologies and trends. That is why education was created in history. But, undertaking a degree for busy hard-working individuals is almost impossible considering the time constraints in a day. So academics and industry practitioners, from thousands of years ago had decided to gather on a regular basis to share their research outcomes and achievements in a summit, conference, or just recently via presenting in webinars. In general, that is all with the purpose of keeping ourselves fresh and up to date which is a necessity in your professional success. Apart from that, annual webinars like this are a form of motivation for scholars to continue their research studies as they see more people are interacting with their research outcomes during the webinars. 

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For many years, particularly after the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, governments had pushed their agenda on implementing environmental practices across the industries. This includes reducing the amount of waste generation, reusing the waste materials, and recycling the renewable waste streams which altogether leads to the reduction in the global greenhouse gas emission. Construction being one of those industries that is always criticized for being one of the most impactful industries with a high human intervention in natural ecosystems. We as the workers in this industry extract natural resources, change the landscapes, build giant structures such as dams, highways, canals, etc. These changes on the surface of the earth indeed come at a cost if aren't studied thoroughly. So, that is why in the recent years, universities established environmental studies in construction-related courses. Because we don't want our cities to be flooded or prone to earthquakes, landslides, which are some of the causes of not considering the nature's response to our human activities. 

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Definitely, you have heard of the blockchain technology and particularly Bitcoin as it hit the news every now and then. But it's like cement and concrete, they are not the same yet often being confused as to be the same thing. In fact, Bitcoin is just a branch (let's call it) of the blockchain technology. A blockchain is a network of computers that are connected and operating on the same issue. Bitcoin for example is a financial instrument that is based on the blockchain without the need for a single giant central computer. The idea of decentralization is in fact derived from the same concept as the network is not reliant on one computer only. Which is good. It redefines democracy in the digital world. But what does it have to do with the construction industry? Today we will talk about some of the basic terms of the blockchain technology and expand on some of the existing examples. we will then be able to have a more clear picture of the potentials.

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Today's topic is about the applications of image processing, particularly in the construction industry. As we all know construction industry had always been amongst the last to embrace new digital technologies. We are working in a highly labour intensive industry that with a high risk to health and safety of the workers due to the nature of the work. And bringing digital technologies to the place is one of the ways to make literally everything better. With that being said, image processing refers to the use of cameras that are integrated with computer program for the purpose of object detection. You basically let the computer make some decisions on behalf of you. Two of its practical applications that we developed and used are one in the concrete production and the other in the precast steel frame manufacturing. 

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