John Rygg: Constructing and Engineering for All Industries at Kiewit

It's another week, which means an all-new episode of the Future Construct Podcast! This week, on Season 3, Episode 7, our host Amy Peck (@AmyPeckXR) was joined by John Rygg, the Technology Strategist and R&D HoloLens Product Owner for the Kiewit Innovation Team (27-minute interview). A lot of insightful topics were discussed during the session, as Amy and John delved into exchanges about augmented reality, wearable technology, and integration into the construction industry. About John RyggWith more than 20 years of experience managing and leading corporate IT teams in developing and implementing enterprise-wide software and infrastructure, John has been recognized as #10 on the 2017 Buildworlds Top 50 Technology Adoption Leaders. For much of his career, he has served in facilitating the technology strategic planning process to determine how IT can best benefit business outcomes. This also includes helping to capture innovation, thinking through corporate strategy, and putting technology to work to achieve it. In innovative and disruptive technologies, John has focused on identifying and driving incremental and disruptive innovation opportunities for field technologies resulting in operational excellence.During the interview, John discussed numerous topics with host Amy Peck (@AmyPeckXR), including:Having IT heavily involved in the front-line innovation at KiewitWhat difficulties pose obstacles to integrating wearable technology into the construction environmentAn explanation of the difference between pass-through video and true augmented reality and the impact each will have on the future of the industryJason's opinion on the delineation between AR and VR and the deployments of both headsets for different utilities Kiewit is one of North America’s largest and most respected construction and engineering organizations. Their construction and design engineering professionals work on some of the industry’s most complex, challenging, and rewarding projects – whether it’s boring tunnels through mountains, turning rivers into energy, or building bridges that connect communities. Kiewit people tackle important projects of every size in any market.SHOW NOTES 4:14  - Amy: "It's also a little bit unusual to have IT so heavily involved in that front-line innovation, so is that your impetus in saying, 'Hey, we need to look at this,' or was that already happening at the company?" 10:09  - Amy: "That [the construction environment] has always been one of the challenges because as great as those devices [wearable tech like HoloLens] are, they're not as rugged as we'd like them to be, and oftentimes you'd have to wear hard hats and rigs that work with hard hats. Do you find that it's the challenging environment or promoting adoption that is the difficulty?"  13:39  - Amy: "Can you explain the difference between pass-through video and true augmented reality, and what impact do you think these devices will have on the future of the industry?" 19:36  - Amy: "I guess this is a question for you, too, in terms of AR and VR. I don't look at augmented reality and virtual reality as competing technologies ... Where do you see that delineation, and do you see deploying both kinds of headsets for different utilities?"Contact the Future Construct Podcast Produced by BIM Designs, Inc!BIM Designs, Inc.: minority-owned, US-based, union-signatory preconstruction technology firm, offering turnkey BIM modeling, laser scanning, coordination management, and other VDC solutions to the AEC industry.Schedule a free consultation: [email protected] to our weekly blog and our Future Construct PodcastSuggest a podcast guest