Exploring the Future of Construction: Digitalisation and Health & Safety Insights | Professor Jennifer Whyte

Within the design process, people shouldn’t just be seen as resources who are expected to deliver something, they should be allowed to think more broadly about the problems they’re addressing.

I have often come back to contemplating this topic when reading about mitochondria.We have mitochondria in all our cells, they convert carbohydrate molecules into packets of energy (ATP) that can then be used directly by our cells to function.

ATP powers muscle cell contraction, protein building, cell replication.. To go down a rabbit hole briefly, these fascinating organelles are the vestiges of ancient bacteria which somehow became intertwined with the larger eucaryote cells of animals and plants.They have their own DNA which is only passed on through the female line.The way they produce ATP is by becoming self-charging batteries of 180mV which drives all the processes in a cell.. To get back to scale; do we have one of these in each cell?

The answer is no, we have a few 100,000 per cell.Over millions of years of evolution although much has changed, they have not changed in size, because the size and structure represent a sweet spot for their function.

You could say that we have learned similarly in the building of batteries; replicating and combining small cells works much better than trying to create large cells.

The body itself carries on the advantages of scaling.Marks feels that a behavioral shift is the main element needed to utilise our existing technology to more of its fullest potential.

It’s a long game, she says.This is about product-led thinking and strategic initiatives focused on long-term business health.. “You need an ecosystem of products, ours and other people's, to make this possible, but you first need leadership to give you permission to learn a direction, a strategy, the reasons you're doing this, and that, rarely, if ever, lives in one project.

We have to stop this nonsense that we're going to somehow change the world with one project.”.The people in leadership positions, whose jobs aren’t vulnerable, they’re the ones who need to move this forward.