Industry Influencers: Dr. Mohamed, Florida International University
Q&A with Dr. Mohamed, Assistant Professor at Florida International University, Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and Sustainability and one of the judges for the 2020 COINS Grand Challenge. Dr. Mohamed’s goal is to foster active, creative and inclusive learning environments for future workforces and embrace sustainability into construction for societal good.
Q: What is your connection with the construction industry?
My tenure in Construction started as an undergraduate, construction management student, working as an intern, before spending the past 15 years of my life accumulating construction knowledge and gaining valuable local and international managerial experiences to make me the professional I am today. I was fortunate to work in the construction industry for different capacities, both in the office and the field. I worked as a Planner, Estimator, and Control’s Engineer with Contract, Procurement and Costing responsibilities in varied types of projects and with consultants, contractors and owners; my projects spanned from Africa to Australia and USA. I spent several years as a Project Manager and my last assignment in construction was delivering multi-million complex projects; for example, I successfully managed, constructed and delivered an office park project with a budget of $150 Million.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
After I decided to hand in my construction safety boots, I joined academia and found my passion that aligned with my mission. In the academic platform, I spend more time developing humans, teaching them the required construction skills while coupling my professional experiences with the textbook. Currently, I am working on utilizing the communication skills into construction courses including VR tools to train students on public speaking and presentation skills. Also, I’m preparing our future workforces in construction to be able to utilize Robotics to further enhance the construction industries’ productivity and safety measures. That brings us to another facet, which is preparing our future construction leaders to be more sustainable in their construction processes and open their eyes on the importance of the various untapped markets like affordable (low-income) housing and building within controlled environments.
Q: How does COINS Grand Challenge encourage innovation in the Construction Industry?
COINS Grand Challenge is a great venue that opens a window onto a demanding future that requires advanced creative solutions, which we are sure our students as well as other entrepreneurs will be fulfilling to further advance the construction industry. COINS Grand Challenge fosters an innovative environment that encourages thinking outside the box and in construction sometimes this remains an unorthodox rational.
Q: Why did you agree to become a judge for the COINS Grand Challenge?
Supporting and guiding innovators and entrepreneurs in the construction remains one of my main goals of life. I do not see myself as a referee, but rather a coach who listens and provides advice to our future construction pioneers.
Q: What do you think main challenges are for the construction industry in the future?
The built environment shall be sustainable, and the construction industry is one of the main players not conforming with such a need. Given the fact that sustainability is not only an environmental factor, but also economical and social including health and well-being.
Q: Why should students enter their ideas into the COINS Grand Challenge?
COINS Grand Challenge provides an opportunity for a paradigm shift in students’ career paths. Students should not think of their ideas as an assignment that would be grades by a professor, but rather an opportunity that can make you a construction Leader or maybe a “millionaire” if you find out the correct formula to build our built environment cheaper, faster, safer, with higher quality and more resilient and sustainable.
COINS Grand Challenge is a competition to boost innovation in the construction industry, There are two entry categories, open and student, with a main prize of $150k (or regional equivalent) - for full details visit coins-grandchallenge.com Deadline for entries is 6 July 2020.
Biography
Dr. Mohamed is an Assistant Professor at Florida International University, Moss School of Construction, Infrastructure and Sustainability. Mohamed holds a diverse cross-disciplinary academic knowledge from Engineering to Architecture to Construction Management. With more than a decade of professional managerial experience in the construction industry, he developed a tool that identifies scope and associated risk for infrastructure systems. His passion couples sustainability in the built environment and health/safety with technologies, which was reflected in successful million-dollar research endeavor. Dr. Mohamed’s goal is to foster active, creative and inclusive learning environments for future workforces and embrace sustainability into construction for societal good.
SHARE
