Come June 9-11, participants of the Build Expo Conference to be held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre will be exposed to local, regional and international exhibitors of products and services aimed at modernising the construction industry locally.

One of the speakers, Dr Behrokh Khoshnevis, is considered a modern tycoon in invention, specifically in the area of 3D printing, which includes contour crafting (CC) — a new automation approach he invented.

Speaking under the theme ‘Build the Future Today’, Dr Khoshnevis’ presentation is expected to explore how the CC machine will revolutionise the construction industry; especially now that private developers are in the process of providing 1500 affordable homes on the north coast.

Contour crafting is a mega-scale 3D fabrication process aimed at automated, on-site construction of whole structures as well as subcomponents, which is achieved using additive processes, where an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the end product is achieved.

Aimed at modernising the construction industry and changing the manual nature it has maintained throughout recorded history, with this method, a single building or a colony of buildings may be constructed automatically. All plumbing and electrical utilities would be embedded, while at the same time each building could have a different design including complex curved features. The CC machine is also capable of printing concrete walls, insulation and even drywall.

The completed buildings are said to have a low environmental and energy impact, and because of its affordability, the concept is regarded as perfect for emergency shelter construction and low-income housing.

Dwight Crawford, one of the directors of Build Expo, has noted with anticipation that having Dr Khoshnevis as part of the panel of speakers will provide great insight into the type of affordable housing that contractors and home builders can be aware of.

“’We are very excited to have Dr Khoshnevis as part of Build Expo. We want to inform and educate builders, home owners, contractors on the type of first world technology there is on home building and what these experts can offer to our country,” he said.

Dr Khoshnevis’ claims to fame include being a National Academy of Inventor’s Fellow and Dean’s Professor of Industrial and Systems, Aerospace and Mechanical, Astronautics, Biomedical and Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as the Director of the Centre for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) at the University of Southern California (USC).

He is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fellow, a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, a Fellow of the Society for Computer Simulation, and a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

His inventions have been either commercialised or are in the commercialisation process and some have received extensive worldwide publicity in acclaimed media such as TheNew York Times, Los Angeles Times, Business Week, Der Spiegel, New Scientist, and national and international television and radio networks.

His brainchild, CC, won the 2014 NASA competition grand prize among 1000+ globally competing technologies. CC was also selected as one of the top 25 out of more than 4000 candidate inventions by the History Channel Modern Marvels programme and the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame; and has been identified as one of the major disruptive technologies of our time.

Additionally, he is active in robotics, mechatronics-related research and development projects that, apart from CC, include the development of novel Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) processes. He is also known for the development of mechatronics systems for biomedical applications, such as restorative dentistry and orthodontics, rehabilitation engineering, tactile sensing devices, and for his work with autonomous mobile and modular robots for fabrication and assembly applications on earth, in space and on other planets, and automated production equipment for oil (petroleum) and gas industries.