
28-30 April 2026
NEC Birmingham


This is the must-attend event for those looking to challenge the status quo alongside industry experts. If you're passionate about playing devil's advocate and tackling the key challenges facing the industry, this summit is for you. Top thought leaders will share valuable insights, along with real-world case studies, offering actionable insights.
The Monklands Replacement Project is NHS Lanarkshire’s exciting vision for University Hospital Monklands (UHM) and the community it serves. A new, state-of-the-art, UHM targeting Net Zero Carbon will support the clinical model to meet objectives set out in NHS Lanarkshire’s healthcare strategy.
The continuing maturity of digital construction provides UHM with the aspiration to create a digital twin offering a huge opportunity to make better-informed decisions that will lead to improved outcomes, enabling NHSL in delivering a hospital of clinical, operational, and building excellence.
As part of the collaborative project delivery team, we will explore:
- How the design is working to achieve a future-looking, inspirational, and digitally enabled clinical environment
- How we are approaching the project development through digital collaboration, practical workflows, standardisation, and component driven risk reporting.
- Investigate some of the key data formats, digital tools and methods employed to deliver the design aspirations towards a digital twin
As AI rapidly reshapes the built environment, questions remain about its role in one of the construction industry’s most critical responsibilities: building safety. This panel brings together leading building safety and digital construction specialists to explore how AI is currently being used, and could be used, in the design, assessment and operations of safer buildings. Through expert discussion and real world perspectives, the panel will examine where AI adds genuine value, where its limitations and risks lie, and how it can complement (rather than replace) professional judgement and regulatory oversight.
Moderated by Women in BIM to encourage open debate, this session will challenge assumptions, highlight practical applications and consider what guardrails are needed to ensure AI supports better, safer outcomes for people and places, both now and in the future.
Cities around the world are becoming “smarter” through the likes of digital technologies such as sensors, data platforms, digital twins and AI-driven systems. But does smart automatically mean intelligent? This head-to-head discussion, hosted by Women in BIM, brings together two contrasting perspectives to challenge how we define intelligence in the built environment.
The session will explore whether today’s smart city initiatives genuinely improve decision making, resilience, inclusivity and quality of life, or whether they risk prioritising technology over people. From data led urban planning and digital infrastructure to governance, ethics and wellbeing, the speakers will debate what true intelligence in cities really looks like and who gets to define it. Fast paced and thought provoking, this discussion will question prevailing narratives, surface uncomfortable truths and invite the audience to rethink how digital tools should serve cities, communities and future generations.
This panel explores the security of modern video conferencing platforms used by governments and public sector bodies, unpacking the balance between usability, scalability, and protection. The discussion will avoid deep cyber security jargon while still examining how cloud infrastructure, encryption, and data routing shape the privacy of virtual meetings. Panellists will look at how national agencies rely on commercial vs sovereign cloud platforms to host sensitive communications, and what that means for data ownership and jurisdiction. The conversation will also touch on supply chain dependencies and the role of global providers in national security contexts.
The session will offer insight into how secure these systems really are, where the main vulnerabilities lie, and what “good enough” security looks like in real-world operations. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of the trade-offs behind the tools they use every day.
AI is rapidly transforming AV - but the real shift is bigger than camera control and smart audio. The meeting room is becoming a sensor, the collaboration platforms a brain, and the building a responsive system. That convergence can finally solve long‑standing workplace problems: wasted space, inconsistent meeting experiences, inaccessible collaboration, runaway energy costs, and support teams drowning in tickets.
In this keynote, Tim Russell (Chief Technologist at CDW UK) reframes “AI in AV” as the front door to smart, human‑centric buildings. You’ll learn how AI‑enabled rooms can improve meeting equity and inclusion, how occupancy and environmental intelligence can optimise comfort and cost, and how to implement “trust by design” so automation enhances people rather than becoming big brother.
Some of the key questions Tim will answer:
Why is it that most people fall into a career in the AV industry? Skills shortages are intensifying, recruitment costs are rising, and most businesses lack the capacity to build their own talent pipeline.
As a result, young people rarely see AV as a viable career route, leaving the sector without a reliable future workforce. The system is broken - employers cannot find talent, schools cannot access industry, and learners cannot see the routes into AV careers:
A modern industry cannot rely on chance, fragmentation, or last-minute recruitment. The AV sector needs a strategic, national system that builds awareness early, guides learners clearly, and connects companies directly to future talent.
In this session, Rachel Hunt and Denise Hughes will introduce NavigateAV, which has aspirations to bridge the divide.
Facilitated by Beky Cann, Re-Sauce
We live at a time when there is a pull by organisations to get workers back into the office, but workers are pushing back, using technology at home to work without the friction of commuting just to make videoconferencing calls at their desk.
In this panel discussion, we ask how technology can help to make the office a place that employees actually want to return to, and how employers can ensure staff want to use the technology they have invested in. We look at whether there is a problem with a lack of standardisation in workplace technology, and how easy it really is to achieve standardisation across international frontiers. We also ask how technology can help us achieve sustainability, both in the office and when working from home, and whether legacy equipment will become an issue as sustainability rises up the agenda.
The modern corporate environment has transitioned from a mere physical location to a dynamic, data-driven ecosystem. As organizations navigate the intersection of hybrid work demands and ESG mandates, the "screen" has moved beyond a simple display to become the primary interface of information and building intelligence.
In this keynote, Miroslav Vučković (Visionect) explores the evolution of the workspace from the old offices of the past to the integrated hybrid hubs of today. We will address the critical information gap that significantly affects employees' productivity and examine how high-performance display networks can bridge this divide without compromising sustainability. By aligning advanced software ecosystems with low-power hardware, organizations can achieve a reduction in operational costs while enhancing employee clarity and safety. Finally, the session will tackle the real-world hurdles of this "phygital" transition, including data security and the complexities of user adoption across the corporate world.
Immersive experiences have moved from novelty to necessity. From large-scale brand activations and XR-powered live events to interactive theatre, AI-driven storytelling and spatial computing, audiences increasingly expect to step inside the narrative rather than simply observe it. But as the hype cycle matures, important questions emerge. Are immersive experiences commercially sustainable? Is the technology finally catching up with creative ambition? And do audiences truly want deeper participation or are we overestimating demand?
This panel will explore whether immersive experiences are positioned for long-term growth or facing a reality check.
As immersive technologies such as projection mapping, spatial computing, and mixed reality continue to evolve, the most impactful experience are increasingly driven by story rather than technology alone. This session explores how narrative led thinking can shape AV and immersive design, allowing technology to become invisible in service of emotion, meaning and audience connection.
Drawing on world-class projects including the UK Pavilion at Osaka World Expo and early work with technologies such as Apple Vision Pro, the panel will discuss world-building, performance led design, and the creation of truly transformative experiences. Speakers will share how their backgrounds in theatre, dance, and live performance influence their creative process. How they navigate an ever-evolving technical landscape without losing narrative focus and what the next two years may hold for immersive experience design across culture, brand, and live environments.
Today’s environments demand seamless integration between security, IT architecture, and building management systems. Yet many organisations still approach security technology through outdated, rigid planning cycles that struggle to keep pace with rapid innovation and evolving risk landscapes.
This keynote explores how the convergence of security and IT systems is reshaping the way technology is designed, deployed, and maintained in modern buildings and critical environments. With increasing pressure to keep systems interoperable, secure, and continuously updated, organisations must move beyond static investment models toward flexible, service-led approaches that support ongoing evolution.
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