So in the first course, when we're highlighting that initiating a project and planning the project, we will be covering series of topics, as I just explained in the introduction. From introducing the construction market or industry in general. Give you an overview about our industry and about our market. And how the market is break to components or types of projects and what are these types of projects? Then we will highlight the differences between construction management, and project management, and program management. Then, we will highlight from an industry point of view, what is the main role for a project construction manager in the field? And the things he or she needs to think about when running a project and managing a project. Very important for you to understand to measure things as well, as a good planner. What type of construction contracts that are out there for you to understand and better choose the right contract in your right project. In addition to that, that connected to it is the right project delivery method for this project you are involved in. Moreover, lean project delivery is an area, a very specific new area increased more and more in the last, let's say, around plus/minus ten years. And it is very important as initiating a project to have this in mind, to think about it before you move forward. Sustainability trends and movements in our construction industry is something very crucial that we will highlight also in this first course, in addition to the environment, health, and safety. Especially with the word safety here, I want to emphasize on it, and why and how it is important, and how to deal with it from a planning point of view and a planning phase of your project. We all heard about Building Information Modeling and how that start to increase more and more, in addition to a lot of other technology trends that catching up in our market. That's why we have a separate recording on that and a module for you to cover what are the trends with more emphasis on Building Information Modeling with several modules under that topic. As I mentioned to you, there are many parties involved in the project in the introduction. These parties, if you want to think about it, it's not necessary to be just in from one countries, you can find several nationalities that they are involved in one project. Because as I explained, the project's becoming bigger and bigger. In order to execute the project and construct it in the right way, sometimes you have to participate or do kind of a joint venture and build a consortium in several companies from several nationalities, not just from one country, come together to build that. So it is very important we highlight in this course here, international view of construction projects. And what to think about what type of risks that a planner should consider in the beginning phases of your project. Then we will go into more technicality of introducing kind of the process of project planning, which will help us for later to introduce us to the second course, focusing on the scheduling part of the project. For example, in this component, Introduction to Project Planning, we will be covering the work breakdown structure, standard codes versus project codes. And a logic diagram behind putting a plan for your construction tasks that you have in your project. As I mentioned before, at Columbia University, we are fortunate to have several connections from several companies all around the world, not just in the US. But in Manhattan, some of these companies, the main head offices are here. So we're lucky enough to build very decent relation with CEOs of these companies, who help us to take our program, the construction management program, to way new level not just in the USA but also globally, as I refer to, from the global leaders in construction management. For example, we have here AECOM. We have CCC. We have Fluor, Turner Construction, Skanska, Parsons Brinckerhoff and so on. Some of these companies, as you can see, are in our field in construction specifically in the industry as builders. Some of them are designers, engineers. But others, like Barclays, more in the finance aspect, which we are learning a lot from them. And they're learning from us on how these companies, that outside from our specific contracting point of view, they are participating in the cycle of building a project. So, it is wonderful experience and all of these companies, we are fortunate that they are participating to help taking our program to a next level in every single year. We do have, at this first course, a series of speakers that I invited, that I worked with before in specific topics in this area, the subtopics I just mentioned, starting from Mr. Paul Haining. Who is the chief EH&S officer of Skanska USA. He is one of the main individuals, very passionate about the area of safety, contributed in the last more than 25 years to this area to get to way a new level, not only in the US but also globally. So I'm fortunate to have him to speak with you about that topic. Gus Maimis, more than almost 30 years of experience. He's a senior vice president in another company called STV Construction based here in New York. And Gus will also be presenting to you his powerful view about the rule of construction manager in the project. William McConnell, or Bill McConnell, he's the CEO and the founder of The Vertex Companies, which around 500 employees now in the company. He's a great mind. He was one of my previous students here at Columbia. He's always going to learn more and more new things being background as a lawyer will have more practice in the construction field. He is the right person to speak to you about construction bonds in our projects. Mr. Tim McManus, one of the greatest mind in our industry, in the infrastructure and capital project industry as well. And he is a vice president, as I mentioned, at Mackenzie and Company Consulting, contribute to a lot of talks in the US, overseas, all around presented to big clients also and governments. So he has a very interesting educational talks or stories or case studies, let's put it this way, that will share with us especially in the area of project delivery methods. Bob Prito, chairman and CEO of Strategic Project Management, his own consulting firm. Bob, before he started his own consulting, he actually used to lead Parsons Brinckerhoff as the CEO and also was one of the senior vice presidents at Fluor, and he wrote a lot of articles in the last 15 or 20 years, published several books. And he will be absolutely the right person to speak with us about the risks when you think about it in international projects or when you have different international parties involved in your project. Ryan Prime, he is the head of sustainability in Skanska USA Civil infrastructure, and he will be speaking with us also about the sustainability aspect. And I brainstorm with Ryan a couple of times to highlight not only the sustainability trends and movements from a building side, which we have it since maybe in the mid 90s with the introduction to lead. But also we have more and more ranking systems and initiatives that coming from the infrastructure side that will be very important for you to understand and to learn in this course. Ms. Dareen Salama, she is project course control manager at also STV and she works currently in LaGuardia Project which is around $3 to $3.2 billion. And she's one of the rising stars we have in the area of construction technology. And she will give us much more details that we work together on it to highlight what are trends, what are the Building Information Modelings that affecting the way we're building projects from the beginning. Mr. Gregory Sauter, he's the president of Crossroads Advisory, founder of Smart City Works infrastructure actuator. And also my colleague. He's an adjunct professor here at Columbia University. Me and Greg, we lead and teach a class on global entrepreneurship in civil engineering. And he will tell you about the introduction to the construction industry we have, in addition to the lifecycle of that EAC project. And he will take you in a very good educational process or journey during this course what you can attend. Sam Spata, great architect, great mind, and his passion and he's studied very carefully the area about lean project delivery. And he will deliver to you fantastic presentation about what is lean, in a way that my humble opinion you didn't see it before. So I encourage you to remember this point when you read or attend Sam Spata module as well. My dear friend Chris Tumi, Christopher Tumi, he spoke a couple of conferences as well as at my classes here at Columbia, added tremendous value to our students at Columbia University. More importantly, he was fantastic in presenting the differences between construction management, project management, and program management. So look forward for that module as well. Last but not least, Philip White the senior partner at one of the biggest law firms in the world, Dentons, from the number of lawyers I believe. And he is the head of infrastructure there and will be talking with us about the area of construction contracts that we use in our industry. He is the right person for sure to lead such a topic. So a little bit about my bio for me and background. I finished my undergrad in civil engineering with a focus in structure from Jordan University of Science and Technology. And then I came here to the US, I went to Minnesota and I did my MBA, Master of Business Administration, with a focus more in finance. And after that, I went to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I did my PhD in civil engineering. But I focus my studies in also construction management, believe it or not, and the reason I did that actually, to connect my undergrad in civil engineering with my Master degree in MBA. Because I don't wanna lose any of these two degrees from technicality point of view, and I focus it more into the construction management arena or field in my PhD. Here at Columbia, I teach several courses that are related to managing engineering and construction processes, principles of construction techniques. And last but not least, the course I just mentioned, which is Global Entrepreneurship in Civil Engineering and how or what do you need to think about and the process you need to follow to build a company and especially a business model. That being said, all these three classes I also worked with companies, like Skanska for example, to develop new courses that related to environmental health and safety for construction management. Another course, I worked very closely with Turner Construction to develop a class focusing on the theory behind virtual design construction, which is BIM, Building Information Modeling. And this is a very common course that my students love to take. Last but not least, I also help in developing a class focusing on real estate finance for construction management. I want to wrap up this bio and my introduction with a project that I am personally heavily involved at, since May 2015, with the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Where we put a group together from all around the world from members at the World Economic Forum or WEF. That we came together to study the future of construction. The first phase of the project of this month to year project actually got finished in 2016, in May, and you can go ahead online to the website and download that project or that publication. I encourage you to read it, to have an understanding where is our market from a company point of view, from the industry point of view, from a government point of view, think about a component to come ahead of us. That project, we were fortunate to be presented that project at Davos in January of 2016. And the second phase of the project, we divided into six topics to continue studying and updating where is our market heading and where is our industry heading. And these six topics, we're highlighting one of them, Project Delivery. I'm currently the working group lead on that component, project delivery, and in addition to that fantastic team that was put together with the support of the Boston Consulting Group. We are studying six topics in addition to the project delivery and planning to present that also in Davos this coming January of 2017, with the aim to publish another study around the same time, in May of 2017. The same time when we publish the first phase of the project. With that, I want to welcome you again to our specialization. And I am very confident that all of you will love and enjoy the journey that you will go through in our first course that's focusing on project initiation and project planning. Thank you and welcome to the specialization.
