It is well known that the construction industry has been slow to adopt digitalisation, but that is changing. For example, no longer does the industry just use simple drawings and spreadsheets. The use of 3D and 4D imagery, the application of drones on building sites, the use of programmes for real time scheduling and rescheduling, the incorporation of digitalised photographic records in building documentation and the emphasis on environmental data capture are all now in common use. The industry is beginning to catch up.
The application of AI to the immense amount of data that is generated when constructing or renovating a building, and the subsequent potential for the use of this data in the maintenance of the building and the planning of future buildings, is also beginning to be a reality. The generation of the data is also becoming increasingly sophisticated and detailed.
But the holy grail is to ensure that all the different elements of the process can interact in an end-to-end, seamless continuum, allowing really meaningful and insightful trend analysis. A key challenge is data quality. Recent work done by Qflow shows that
• 91% of product and waste data required enrichment to become usable for analysis;
• 95% of delivery documentation and 75% of waste transfer notes were incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate;
• Only 34% of construction materials have enough data to accurately calculate their carbon emissions.
Our panel discussed some of the main successes, challenges and trends affecting technology in the built environment today.
Annette Nabavi, WiTT board director and Non-Executive Director at Eleco, chaired the panel. She was joined by:
Chloe Donovan, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Natural Building Systems;
Brittany Harris, Founder and CEO, Qualis Flow (Qflow);
Lucy Lyons, Co-founder & CEO, Kestrix;
Theresa Mohamed, Partner, Watson Farley & Williams LLP; and
Dr Sakthy Selvakumaran, Founder & CEO, BKwai.
WiTT thanks Watson Farley & Williams LLP for hosting this event.
You can watch a video of the event here.
Chair and Panelist biographies
Panel Chair
Annette Nabavi
AHV Associates / Anchusa Consulting / iomart plc / Eleco plc
Annette has a broad range of public and private board experience and currently holds a number of Directorships. She is a Non-Executive Director on the board of iomart plc, an AIM listed cloud services business. She serves as the Chairman of iomart’s Remuneration Committee and is a member of the Audit Committee. She is also a Non-Executive Director on the board of Eleco plc, an AIM listed construction industry software company, where she chairs the Remuneration Committee and acts as the Senior Independent Director. She was on the Advisory Board of the National Media Museum, part of the Science Museum Group for 10 years, and also served as a Non-Executive Director on the board of Maintel Group plc for 7 years. She is a Director of Women in Telecoms and Technology (WiTT) Ltd.
Annette previously held the position of Head of Telecoms Global Business Development for Corporate Finance at ING Barings where she gained significant experience in M&A, private equity, structured debt and public equity transactions.
She later became the founding director and CEO of XchangePoint Holdings Ltd, a Venture Capital backed Internet Interconnect company providing broadband metro peering services to ISPs and carriers. Annette was responsible for tripling revenues every year for 3 years, and grew the customer base to over 100 customers while expanding the company into Germany. She successfully achieved two rounds of VC financing.
Her early years were spent with the PA Consulting Group where she specialized in strategic partnerships, business planning and marketing strategy. She became a Senior Partner with PA before moving to Barings.
Annette holds an MA from Oxford University and a Doctorate from the University of Dijon.
Speakers
Chloe Donovan
Managing Director and Co-Founder
Natural Building Systems
Chloe Donovan is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Natural Building Systems, where she leads the development of ADEPT® — a hemp-based kit-of-parts platform designed to make low-carbon construction scalable in practice. Her work brings together agriculture, advanced manufacturing, and building performance to rethink how buildings are made and how they can support healthier lives and ecosystems.
Brittany Harris
Founder and CEO, Qualis Flow (Qflow)
Civil Engineer turned tech entrepreneur; Brittany co-founded Qualis Flow in 2018 on a mission to help construction teams build more efficiently and responsibly. By raising over $10M of venture funding she has grown the company to a 50 strong team deploying Qflow across 3 continents. She has been recognised as an award-winning Civil Engineer and Entrepreneur and serves in notable positions such as Non-Executive Director at the Environment Agency. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Enterprise Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and guest lecture at various universities including the University of Bristol where she studied.
Lucy Lyons
Co-founder & CEO
Kestrix
Lucy Lyons is Co-founder & CEO of Kestrix, the ‘Google Maps of heat loss’ using thermal drones and AI to map and quantify how heat escapes from buildings and generate retrofit plans at city-scale. Since launching Kestrix in 2023, she has led the company to raise $4.5 million in funding (including $2M in non-dilutive grants), map over 9,000 homes on behalf of UK housing providers like Clarion and Peabody and multinational utilities like E.ON and EDF, and win major housing industry awards like the 2024 Unlock Net Zero ‘Innovation of the Year’. Lucy is a listee in Forbes 30 under 30’s technology category and was named GP Bullhound’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2024. She holds an M.Sc from the University of Oxford in Sustainability, Enterprise, and the Environment and a B.A. from New York University.
Theresa Mohamed
Partner, Disputes Resolution Group
Watson Farley & Williams LLP
Theresa specialises in contentious construction and has significant experience of acting for developers, employers and main contractors, making High Court applications and the Enforcement of Adjudicators’ decisions in the Technology and Construction Court. She is familiar with both standard and bespoke forms of construction contracts.
She has been the lead lawyer on major infrastructure disputes concerning a bascule lifting bridge, viaducts, examining defects in transport infrastructure, airports and providing risk management advice on high value social infrastructure matters.
Theresa also has experience of running High Court trials, instructing experts on technical engineering matters, resolving construction disputes through media on and drafting settlement agreements, claims, defences and adjudication submissions.
She is also a RICS Accredited Evaluative Mediator and can help parties resolve disputes through mediation.
Theresa has also acted for clients in domestic and international arbitrations and frequently works with international clients in contentious proceedings. Theresa has worked on international oil and gas disputes, renewable energy disputes and large domestic infrastructure mtters. She has recently acted in Court of Appeal proceedings for an international client and has made applications to the Supreme Court.
She is a regular speaker at London Build and for the RICS CPD training programme and is a frequent contributor to Building Magazine, Construction Law and Construction Manager.
Dr Sakthy Selvakumaran
Founder & CEO
BKwai
Dr Sakthy Selvakumaran is the Founder & CEO of BKwai, a technology company using data to help predict potential ground and structural issues in the built environment before they occur. She is a Chartered Engineer & Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE) and a Fellow in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she leads multidisciplinary research at the intersection of engineering, satellite sensing and computer science, focused on infrastructure resilience, natural hazards and climate challenges. With experience spanning UK and Spanish infrastructure delivery and asset management, as well as post-earthquake reconstruction work in Peru, Sakthy brings both real-world and research perspectives to the future of construction. Outside of work she also volunteers as Engineering Manager for SARAID and is a qualified Urban Search & Rescue Technician. Her achievements include Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe, the FT Top 100 Women in UK Engineering, and selection for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s prestigious Shott Accelerator.