On Tuesday, Housing& hosted “Where Innovation Meets Impact: Technology’s Role in the Future of Housing” at Bozzuto’s offices in Greenbelt, MD. The day started with a fireside chat featuring Gilbane’s Senior Vice President of Development Robert Gilbane Jr. and Bozzuto Construction Company President Mark Weisner, where they discussed technology’s role in shaping the future of affordable housing. Gilbane and Weisner spoke about their process for adopting new technology and sunsetting non-valuable tools – stating that it’s important to understand why a new tool should be utilized and how it may add value to the work, but that it’s also important to “fail fast” and drop tools that are ineffective. According to them, the construction industry is deeply resistant to change, so there must be a willingness to implement new tools with the expectation that they may fail, and to learn from those experiences. They stressed the importance of a top-down but “people-first” approach to introducing new technologies, enabling folks to get excited about the new tech and to suggest improvements, as well as providing learning opportunities so people can be well-equipped to utilize new tech. Both Robert and Mark mentioned finding AI resources like Microsoft Copilot as an especially useful tool in their work. Overall, Gilbane and Weisner stressed the importance of fostering a culture that supports new ideas, knowing that younger, fresher voices understand these tools better and can support implementation moving forward.
The program also included a panel discussion exploring tech across the housing cycle. Experts in development, construction, and real estate spoke about the low-tech tools that they feel are most effective for communication and collaboration, like Asana and Google Sheets, and video conferences. High-tech tools like visual design and BIM have become indispensable and are used in nearly all of their projects. ChatGPT and leasing AI tools have been helpful for efficiency in development and real estate, while Onsite IQ has been most helpful in construction. They also discussed funding limitations and their impacts on internet access, how teams are managing operations across properties with tech, and the importance of balancing effectiveness with personability. Thanks to Brady Davidow, Zachary Schooley, Bobvala Tengen, Jacqueline West-Spencer, and Laila Coelho Reilly for their incredible insights.
Many thanks also to our sponsors, Bozzuto Construction & Gilbane Development Company!
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