Bentley held its annual infrastructure best practices and awards ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina from Oct. 12-14. This year’s invite-only Be Inspired seminar and awards event highlighted the best work of Bentley software customers from 6 continents and 21 countries in disciplines ranging from the design of bridges, buildings and plants to cadastre and land development, communications, transportation, mining and metals and water and wastewater.

The event coincided with the 25^th anniversary of the company, which provided an opportunity for some reflection about sustained and steady growth. The success was attributed to the promotion of the benefits of infrastructure as well as a focus on user needs with a layered software approach that continues to build upon the past with upgrades that are always backward compatible to previous versions of software.

The intimate event provided a setting for interaction among practitioners across the globe. The Utility and Government sessions were representative of the global interactions taking place with presentations from the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Canada, Spain, India, the Philippines, South Korea, Russia and India. Each finalist made a 20-minute presentation to their peers, with good dialogue during the Q&A segments.

Sustainable Outcomes

Last year Bentley adopted the tagline of “sustaining infrastructure” with an emphasis on the importance of infrastructure for economic development and for sustaining our environment. Bentley asserts that information modeling is the key to achieving sustainability goals, integrating project outcomes with their surroundings and enhancing project delivery through more streamlined workflows.

Attendees heard an inspiring talk regarding the benefits of infrastructure from the mayor of Charlotte during the opening remarks of the award ceremony. Mayor Patrick McCrory has served 14 years as mayor, with his longevity largely based on his focus on infrastructure and an adherence to a 25-year plan for transportation and land use. McCrory connected infrastructure to health care, and emphasized that paying for it now before it goes into disrepair means a better quality of life and continued and sustained economic growth.

Community Building

This year the company decided to forego the annual Be Conference in favor of an entirely online education offering, citing both the failing economy and the environmental impact of an in-person event. While the online-only offering has drawn good traffic, the company did concede that an in-person event still has merit because it gives attendees a good concentrated education opportunity away from their busy work and home lives.

The company has announced a Be Communities ‘Live’ Conference that will take place in Philadelphia from May 17-20. The event aims to harness user groups and practitioner communities to offer a hands-on education and in-depth skills building sessions from product managers. There will also be an extensive technical support effort at the event to address any user troubles.

See related coverage of the event via the following Blog posts:

Bentley’s i-model Solves Dynamic Collaboration Problem

Be Inspired Award Winners Announced

Keith Bentley on Computing Trends

Bentley Incorporates Point Clouds as an Integrated Data Type

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