The winners of Bentley’s Be Inspired Awards were announced on the evening of Oct. 13 at a dinner and ceremony in Charlotte. This annual event, that this year marked the 25th anniversary of Bentley Systems, recognizes innovative application of Bentley software for the disciplines of building, structural, civil engineering, plant and geospatial. In the past, this event was held in conjunction with the BE Conference, but with this year’s conference moved online it was incorporated into a special Be Inspired event that provided an opportunity for each finalist to present the details of their work and share best practices with their peers.
Yesterday, more than 50 finalists came together from around the globe to present their work, which culminated in a dinner and award ceremony. The evening began with an inspired talk by Charlotte’s mayor Pat McCrory, who has been in this position for 14 years. McCrory has been responsible for spearheading considerable investments in the city’s infrastructure that include a new stadium, convention center, light rail and airport expansion. He made a fitting appeal to the importance of infrastructure development for a city, equating infrastructure work to health care of the community, and urging proactive action before a city becomes too ‘sick’ to save.
Some of the notable winners of last night’s festivities for geospatial related projects include:
Sustaining Our Society – Hatch Associates won for their Adelaide Desalination Project that is helping this South Australia city cope with a prolonged drought. The facility supplements the fresh water supply and incorporates solar energy generation and other innovative energy recovery means to counter the energy intensive reverse osmosis process.
Sustaining Our Environment - Olsson Associates won for Antelope Valley in Lincoln, Nebraska, a community development that community revitalization, stormwater management and transportation improvements.
Innovation in Cadastre and Land Development – KASL Consulting and Engineering was awarded for their work on the Metro Fire Stateion No. 29 in Citrus Heights, California. This land development project incorporated significant land reconfiguration to mitigate height restrictions, manage stormwater and retain as many mature trees on the site as possible.
Innovation in Utilities – Huntsville Utilities won this award for an aggressive integration of their electric, water and gas businesses with Bentley’s Expert Designer and ProjectWise integrating with a new installation of SAP. This major business transformation was months in the works, and has resulted in considerable time and cost savings.
Innovation in Communications – Precision Contracting Services won the award for their City of Port St. Lucie, Florida fiber optic network design. This citywide fiber optic network project used Bentley products to map the network all the way to the inside of the plant, incorporating future growth plans and ease of maintenance.
Innovation in Water, Wastewater and Stormwater Networks – The Water Supply and Sanitation Deparment of Maharashta, India won for their crisis management of water supply after the Supreme court restricted water distribution in the Krishna River that meant that more than 17 million people were without water. There was civil unrest as a result in 13 cities in this state that includes Mumbai. Using Bentley products to develop a detailed hydraulic model, the state was able to work around this issue to restore reliable water service.
This annual event provides an excellent forum for practitioners to highlight and share their innovative work with other practitioners, and affords a showcase for the power of technology to solve demanding sustainability problems.
