The Cleopatra Enterprise team has been honored to be the main sponsor of a valuable event, the long-awaited ICEC World Congress 2022. Being the first event that many people attended physically after so long, the 25th edition of ICEC was exhilarating for everyone. As a hybrid event, people also attended online from all over the world.
The attendees contributed to a knowledge-sharing environment, made connections and acquired a comprehensive understanding of issues relevant to the industry and the world. Numerous presentations, workshops and panel discussions brought the cost engineering and quantity surveyor professionals together. Delightfully, many colleagues from the Cleopatra team represented us in the best way by joining the conference as a speaker and enlightening the audience about the topics they mastered.
Our CEO, Christiaan des Bouvrie, welcomed the guests on the first day during the opening ceremony:
“Welcome everyone, good to see that so many of you could join.
This week, we are participating - even celebrating - the 25th edition of the International Cost Engineering Council event which is hosted by DACE this year. As the Cleopatra team, we are honored to be the main sponsor of this edition and we truly value that you are investing your time to be part of this exciting event. I am curious… When was the last time you joined a face to face (in-person) cost engineering event? After the COVID restrictions, we are now finally able to meet up with peers and colleagues in our profession again.
What I have learned is that these events are still incredibly valuable in today’s world to have personal interactions. Last week I was with a client and had an innovative brainstorming session which triggered me again about how energizing and inspiring this can be.
The theme of this year is “Predictable projects in a dynamic world”. In normal times this proved to be challenging enough. Even Niels Bohr, the father of quantum theory once said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!”.
However, in today’s world which is volatile and rapidly changing in many ways through global warming, geopolitical instability, increasing inflation and COVID-19 which lead to have a predictable project outcome almost impossible. But as you know, it always seems impossible until its done.
Sharing knowledge, gaining new insights and learning from past experience by closing the loop is crucial for the cost engineering community to face this challenging task. The ICEC event is all about that. I, therefore, want to express my compliments to the DACE team who have been able to assemble an impressive line of international speakers covering topics ranging from project controls and ICT to geographical influences and human factors. I am convinced that will see a lot of excitement and energy from the participants and fruitful discussions based on these presentations. Only through this we can move the profession forward. But as cost engineers we do not only need to look at the challenges, but we should also look at the opportunities.
Next to knowledge sharing it will come as no surprise that we as the Cleopatra Enterprise team will find innovation and digitalization as one of the key pillars to achieve predictable project outcomes and to increase project performance. In the end, isn’t innovation the most powerful force of change in the world?
I am therefore more than proud to announce that we are releasing Cleopatra 10, our ultimate integrated project cost management platform. This means a whole new set of technological innovations to empower you to execute projects successfully. Our team will be more than happy to tell and demonstrate this to you at our booth and share their insights in the presentations they give.
So, without further ado, let me once again thank our fantastic speakers for giving their time and insight this week. And I hope all of you participating or watching online will enjoy the 25th edition of the ICEC event.”
What did the participants of ICEC 2022 think?
"It was feeling great for me to be able to travel from Singapore to the Netherlands to meet people face-to-face, exchange thoughts over tea/lunch break and make connection. I am also thankful to ICEC and DACE for giving me the opportunity to be one of the panelists for the Talkshow 2 - Cost Engineering: Collaboration is key, as a Rising Professional representative. Glad to receive positive feedbacks and kind words from all the seniors for ICEC RP and I hope we will have more ICEC RPs rise and come forward for future Congress."
- Jacqueline Huan, Northcroft Lim Consultants Pte Ltd / ICEC Rising Professionals Chair
‘’ICEC 2022, Rotterdam. An inspiring event where I was nominated from Project Controls team at Fluor Amsterdam ☺️ It felt great to be part of a physical event after so long and connect with people in person. It was an unforgettable experience since there were many insightful presentations and panel discussions by the professionals about rising issues. Lessons learnt:
1- Keep your head up, but take the high heels with you just in case of a national Dutch alert
2- Make sure your network & company supports you in the long run
3- Manage your own budget as well while you control the projects’ budget and win some prizes 🥳
Thank you Fluor Corporation for nomination. & Thank you Cleopatra Enterprise for the day with surprises!’’
- Nilufer Yilmaz Oyaci, Senior Project Control Engineer, Fluor B.V.
‘’What an amazing event was ICEC! The only downside was the tough choice I had to make every single time to decide which presentation to go to. The things I’ve enjoyed the most was the food and talking to my peers. Not necessarily in that order, well…. I loved the Boom Chicago act in which they said that ‘All projects are predictable: They are always late and always over budget.’ I wish I could have joined all the presentations and the panel discussions, as I have a feeling I could have learned more…. What surprised me the most? Winning a bottle of champagne and Tony’s chocolate at the stand of Cleopatra!’’
- Carmen Valk-Struik, General Manager/Owner, Meerwerkportaal.nl
Memories from ICEC 2022
Overall, as The Cleopatra Enterprise team, we truly enjoyed the event since we had the chance to communicate with many of the participants who stopped by our booth. We were also glad to welcome people who were interested in knowing more about our work after they attended the presentations/panel discussions/workshops by our colleagues. We answered many questions about Cleopatra and had mini demo sessions by demonstrating how Cleopatra can help businesses in various ways. Next to these educational conversations at the booth, surprises were waiting for people as they play our interactive booth game Spin & Win for nice prizes!
Until next time…!
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