Meet the Women in BIM!

Women in BIM is global online community with a vision to support, empower and celebrate female BIM and digital construction professionals.

They believe that by working together and supporting women’s career options and learning development opportunities they can help to retain a more diverse industry.

With hundreds of members across the globe, Women in BIM has established itself as an initiative that creates connections and shares knowledge throughout its network and beyond, supporting events by providing partnerships, speakers and field specialists, and supporting its members with benefits such as discount codes and networking opportunities.

But who are the women behind Women in BIM? 

Rebecca De Cicco – Founder & Chair

Women in BIM was founded in 2012 as a response to the lack of Women in BIM related roles and in attendance at conferences all over the world. My passion to start this group was based on the fact that there was a growing market for BIM in the world (and related skills) and that there were very few women in this space. At the very beginning of establishing the group I found that there was often a lack of woman either speaking at an event or working on projects, and coupled with the lack of female leaders in construction generally I felt a focused Women in BIM group was required to help to support others in this position and grow a network.

The group has evolved into a global community of Women working in BIM.  The intention of the group is to support Women in BIM related roles and enable the following:

• To encourage and support young women in entering the Construction Industry and BIM related careers.  

• To support women in their region of the world on the hard face of projects and share ideas across regions and roles.

• To retain women in Leadership as too many women are leaving and not re-entering following career breaks.

At present we now have over 800 members globally and growing and we hope to create regional hubs of support all over the world. With the release of the international standard for BIM, ISO 19650, there is now a growing need for cross regional support and sharing of skills globally and I feel a group of this kind can certainly support and enable this to happen.

Rebecca-de-Cicco

Louise Kelly – Global Vice Chair

As Vice Chair with Women in BIM my role largely entails supporting Rebecca as Chair and the Core Team in their roles. I also manage our website (which we are currently rebuilding) and our database of members. I became a member of the Women in BIM LinkedIn group after seeing Rebecca present at the first BIM event I attended in Dublin in 2012. When I moved to the UK I became more heavily involved and joined the core team. I find the best thing about WiB is the ability to connect with other women with similar interests to myself.

Louise Kelly

Nicole De Cicco – Core Team member, Global Administration & Communications

I became a core team member of Women in BIM within the last year. Seeing such passion and enthusiasm from my sister Rebecca De Cicco who founded this group, I wanted to become involved immediately to help support and retain Women in BIM. Although not having a background specifically in Construction, I have learnt a lot about the industry and BIM over the years and really wanted to help drive this initiative. As a young woman now in this industry, I believe it is so important to empower women in this space and help drive towards a more diverse and unified community. I also believe that having more women in the construction industry especially in BIM, will address the skills shortage. Too many women are leaving the industry as there is no support for re-entry after having children or career breaks. As I work with BIM with many regions across the world I am keen to support the global community of women in this space to be able to connect with one another.

Nicole de Cicco

Katya Veleva – Core Team Member, Communities & Engagement

I started getting involved with Women in BIM in the summer of 2018. I am passionate about diversity issues and from the intersection of my identities, my femininity has always felt the most out of place in the industry. I as soon as I learned about Women in BIM, I immediately wanted to get involved. Being part of Women in BIM has been amazing for me – participating in events has been priceless for maintaining and building up my technical knowledge and getting myself out there, but most of all I have felt truly immersed in the community and have had the chance to build valuable relationships. Only recently I was struggling with a bit of a gap in the new regulatory documents, I only had to quickly look into the network of WIB and within an hour I had a meeting set up with a specialist who was currently working on resolving that gap! How brilliant is that!

Katya Veleva

Vicki Holmes – Core Team Member, London Regional Lead &UK Events Coordinator

I first came across Women in BIM about three years ago, when a colleague recommended that I join the database. Initially I was just grateful for some networking time with other women in the industry, but it quickly became so much more than that. The work that the group do to push for diversity across speaker panels at major industry events is refreshing and encouraging, and the way that @WomeninBIM on Twitter has become a go to tag for all things related to digital best practice motivated me to become even more involved with the talented community that Rebecca had brought together. When I was offered the opportunity to join the core team last year I jumped at the chance, and I’m so proud that I can help provide opportunities and support, and hopefully inspire other women in the way that I was so inspired when I found the group.

Vicki Holmes

To reach out to, collaborate with or join the community at Women in BIM you can contact the team through the following channels:

To join the mailing list and database visit www.womeninbim.org

To join the conversation join us on Twitter @WomeninBIM

To talk about anything else just drop us an email at info@womeninbim.org

There are currently Women in BIM Regional Leads in all of the areas listed below. If you would like to connect with your Regional Lead, or would like to become a lead for a region not yet covered, please email info@womeninBIM.org