Vaughan Harris, Founder and President, BIM Institute

Vaughan Harris , aka ‘The Baron of BIM’ has a wealth of history working in the think tanks and leadership development arena within the digital construction industry. His strong business development skills, succession
planning and training development has successfully positioned him as the Founder and President for the BIM Institute and is currently the Executive Director for the BIM Academy Africa.

Vaughan has been involved in various sectors of the construction industry locally and internationally since graduating as a Quantity Surveyor in 1994. His 14 years of quantity surveying with one of South Africa’s largest construction companies, Aveng Grinaker gave him the opportunity to work with various professional teams on projects. In 2000, he started specialising in information management systems to better coordinate the design and construction processes on projects and as a result worked in Australia on various transport and defence projects. His seven years with one of Africa’s largest construction software development companies, gave him the opportunity in working with various software applications and products used within the industry.He has lectured at the Department of Construction and Economics Management at the University of Cape Town, transferring knowledge learnt on new generation technology for the construction industry. In addition to his valuable role within the construction industry in Africa, he has recently received an award for the top 30 BIM Blogs on the internet and is rated in the Top 500 most influential BIM experts on social media. Vaughan, successfully founded the Digital Construction Expo in 2016 in South Africa and is acknowledged among numerous local and international technology companies for his passion and commitment to supporting the digital transformation in Africa.

Through Vaughan’s knowledge and expertise in construction technology and digital processes, he has risen to the position of influence and industry leader in Africa. While Vaughan has found success with the BIM Institute, his involvement and willingness to share his knowledge and experience internationally has been instrumental in assisting organizations such as CanBIM (Canada BIM Council) in understanding the current status of BIM guidelines in Canada and recently steered the Ethiopian government Building Information Modelling implementation program. His latestbook publication ‘BIM – its your move’ is written for professionals and students that are serious about their digital construction future and are working in earnest to future-proof their careers and companies. It is a valuable source of information and an honest synopsis of where the continent stands in its own digitisationjourney. The book has already reached over 1000 downloads since its release in February 2019.