Salla Eckhardt: Creating Innovative Products in the AEC Industry at Microsoft

We have some amazing content to celebrate our 1-year anniversary episode for you to check out during the holiday season. Thank you to all of our guests that made this past year an amazing experience for the team at BIM Designs, Inc.!

We are thrilled to bring back our very first Future Construct Podcast (23-min interview) guest, Salla Eckhardt, Director of Transformation Services at Microsoft (@Microsoft).

Salla has been Director of Transformation Services at Microsoft since 2018, bringing with her an impressive background in construction and digital design. Since her last appearance on the show, Salla has been named chair of the National BIM Program Steering Committee by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).
Salla has established herself as an industry pioneer, and innovative leader in emerging technology and digital transformation. She is committed to building up others and preparing the next generation in the built environment industry. She volunteers with or holds a chair with several construction-related organizations and is a Women in BIM Mentor. Salla specializes in BIM, digital construction, digital twins, extended reality (AR, VR, MR, CAVE), and the Digital Building Lifecycle.

At Microsoft, Salla leads a multi-million-dollar R&D program as well as the Microsoft WW Construction community. She’s also established the Digital Building Lifecycle, resulting in a 50% reduction in design and engineering expenses, 33% reduction in construction budgets with digital program management, and 20% reduction in operational costs with digital twin supported business intelligence; and established the organization-wide BIM, digital construction, and digital twin programs.
Highlights of Salla’s interview with host Amy Peck (@AmyPeckXR) include:

• Salla talks about adjusting to the pandemic’s effects on the workplace (home)
• How the metaverse might affect the social environment
• Is the metaverse on the radar at Microsoft?
• Salla discusses upcoming technologies she’s most excited about

SHOW NOTES

0:37 Amy Peck introduces Salla Eckhardt, Director of Transformation Services at Microsoft.

02:52 In terms of current trends, how are you thinking about all of this hype around the metaverse and digital twins?

07:00 How do we close the gap between the future vision of how we can do everything in a different and better way, from where we are right now?

13:11 We have this opportunity of actually being able to work with data in 3D environments from the inside out. And I don't think we've quite cracked what that visual language looks like. We're still bringing in these 2D constructs into 3D. Is this something that you've looked at, or have you seen anyone really pushing the envelope in terms of how we can start to parse this data and make completely new and broader inferences?

15:10 Buildings are the anchors of cities and then the built environment in digital twins are really going to be the anchor for smart cities. What does that kind of workflow look like?

22:11 If you could project yourself, you're 20, 25 years into the future, and you could have any kind of gadget or service or just something that would make your life better or make you personally happy, what would it be and what would it do?

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