Shail Desai presents the Intelligent Construction Portal at the Microsoft Bay Area Science Fair after the 2023 Hackathon, with Microsoft team members on the screen beside her, including Ajoy Bhattacharya (bottom left), Blake Baxter (top center), Simona Fitzgerald (bottom center), and Sonya Weaver-Johnson (bottom right).
Every year in September, Microsoft offices all around the globe buzz with excitement.
That’s when tens of thousands of Microsoft employees and interns pour their creative energy into the largest private hackathon on the planet.
Over the past decade, they’ve hacked on tens of thousands of projects, tackling everything from climate change to the preservation of the world’s languages to fresh product ideas such as Microsoft Designer. And just to be clear, hacking in this context has nothing to do with illegally breaking into computers. This is all about applying an innovative spirit to technical—and societal—challenges.
And in some cases, hack projects morph into unique problem-solving and collaboration opportunities between Microsoft employees, partners, and customers.
That’s the case for one project that originated in the Bay Area.
It started when Sonya Weaver-Johnson, a Microsoft business leader based in Southern California, took over a new team of technology strategists and account executives focused on the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector. She’s participated in multiple Microsoft Hackathons over the years and immediately asked her new team to come up with a Hackathon idea.
“I love Hackathons because they offer a unique opportunity to tackle real-world problems,” Sonya said. “The blend of diverse skills and perspectives creates an exciting atmosphere where innovation thrives. And then, the pressure of a ticking clock creates the magic formula.”
Helping construction companies be more efficient
Shaili Desai, a Bay Area-based Microsoft account executive with deep knowledge of the AEC industry, knew right away the problem they should tackle. One of her Bay Area clients, a specialty contractor, was searching for a way to make better use of its data to keep projects on track and within budget.
“They were grappling with the problem of disjointed processes and data silos,” Shaili said. “There were many specialized niche solutions that could solve part of the problem, but they didn’t address the end-to-end issue they were facing, which led to a lot of inefficiencies and productivity loss.”
But she soon realized what was needed was to create an intelligent dashboard pulling data from Microsoft’s cloud solutions, as well as productivity and collaboration applications, specifically designed to meet the needs of construction companies.
Sonya said she loved the idea. Before the 2022 Global Hackathon, they put together a team of people with different skills, including sales, consulting, and engineering. The team members—based everywhere from Silicon Valley to San Diego to Hyderabad, India—collaborated virtually. The team even reached outside of Microsoft, bringing on people from Hitachi, an industry partner with expertise in business processes and bringing data together.
They built the prototype of what they now call the Intelligent Construction Portal. It leverages Microsoft Power Apps and Power Pages to create a portal integrating analytic tools for project management, delivering actionable data insights tailored for construction companies’ most pressing needs.
After that first Hackathon, they knew they were on to something powerful, and they committed to continuing their work in the 2023 Microsoft Global Hackathon, with a focus on adding an AI-powered assistant to provide relevant insights tailored to the user’s role, permissions, and project. That project won them an honorable mention out of 16,000 projects worldwide and earned the support from two executive sponsors.
And they garnered the most meaningful recognition of all—a major engineering and construction industry customer signed on to be Customer Zero.
Real-world trial
That client is Fluor Corp., an Irving, Texas-based construction firm with more than 30,000 employees that manages projects big and small around the world. The company places high value on using data to operate efficiently and on schedule. Simona Fitzgerald, a Microsoft client manager based in San Diego, has been working with Fluor on the company’s digital transformation.
“We brought them into one of our technology centers more than two years ago, and we had an opportunity to showcase our vision for the Intelligent Construction Portal,” Simona said. “We told them, here’s what we’re trying to build, and they said, `Yes, that’s exactly what we need.’”
Fluor Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer Robert Taylor says he wanted to create a tool that would function as a “single pane of glass,” delivering the company’s data in a visual and analytical dashboard that could be used across all of Fluor’s business lines.
His employees had already been using Microsoft Teams and SharePoint to pull information and display it in a visual way using Microsoft Power BI. With the help of Microsoft’s Hackathon team and partners from Hitachi, Fluor has created a tool they refer to as “Project Portal,” building on a simplified security model using Microsoft Azure user authentication and Microsoft’s Power Platform technology.
After launching the pilot in April, Fluor now has 20 global projects using the solution, “and requests weekly for further new project deployments,” he said. “The feedback from the user community has been very positive. We look forward to a brighter future with Project Portal.”
Ready, set, hack!
Microsoft’s 2024 Global Hackathon starts September 16, and Sonya, Simona, Shaili, and the rest of the team are looking forward to getting the creative juices flowing again. They aim to continue their work, focusing now on developing a common data model specific to the construction industry with an AI-powered copilot. The aim is to create a tool that integrates with Microsoft Fabric to extract data tailored to each individual user’s needs and role.
Sonya says that would allow construction companies to tap into sophisticated predictive analytics that would, for example, help company leaders quickly identify the most reliable and reasonably priced contractor or determine when to switch to a different material because of supply chain delays. Eventually, Sonya says the portal may be something beneficial to other sectors, including health care and manufacturing.
For Shaili Desai, whose idea sparked this project two years ago, seeing it come to life and help real-world customers has been rewarding.
“The Microsoft Global Hackathon is just an unparalleled experience,” said Shaili. “It pushes the boundaries of creativity and leadership and allows you to come up with innovative solutions for your customers. For an industry ripe for transformation like architecture, engineering, and construction, the Hackathon is a great way to problem solve together. I can’t wait to see how we take this project to the next level!”