buildingSMART International appoints Léon van Berlo as the Technical Director

London, (July 19, 2019) – buildingSMART International has appointed Léon van Berlo as its Technical Director. Léon has previously served a variety of roles at the National Institute for Innovation (TNO) in the Netherlands, including BIMserver Program Manager and Senior BIM Innovator. At TNO, Léon’s work has been focused on creating a data-driven industry through technological adoption and developing new concepts. By enabling new prototypes through consensus building and collaboration, Léon developed new products for market-based demand, including large EU funded projects. During this time, Léon also worked on several open standards and BIM standardization initiatives for international audiences. As a thought-leader on BIM and openBIM initiatives, Léon provides the right expertise to the growing community of buildingSMART.

buildingSMART International organises its work in three board programs. The User Program, the Solutions and Standards Program and the Compliance Program. The User Program is engaged with front line users in countries around the world. The Solutions and Standards Program's primary focus is to develop new technical solutions followed by international consensus-building leading to new international industry standards. The Compliance Program promotes verification and certification schemes which are necessary to support effective deployment and deliver confidence in the data exchanges and use of the standards.

The appointment of a Technical Director is a key milestone for buildingSMART in the development of these programs and to assist the community in delivering successful outcomes and building confidence about future technical plans.

In this role, Léon will work closely with the community to develop a forward-looking Technical Road Map. He will be the chair of Standard Committee Technical Executive (SCTE), addressing technical harmonisation across activities and will facilitate structured engagement with vendors focussed on implementations. Another major component will be to support innovative approaches to standards maintenance, open source software providers, and reference implementations of buildingSMART standards.

Richard Petrie, buildingSMART International Chief Executive, said “the appointment of Léon as the Technical Director will help with the development of a Technology Road Map for our standards and putting in place the technical underpinning to support greater crowdsourcing of solutions is a key goal for buildingSMART International. This appointment will help strengthen the coordination needed across our vast and fast-growing community. Léon will add the technical know-how to expand the use of buildingSMART International tools, coupled with the expertise and experience working with other technical leaders. This makes this appointment so key for our collective forward-looking outlook”.