05 November 2020

iBUILD Global and iLima Digital Foundary announce a technology partnership accelerating the delivery of affordable housing for Africa

Submitted by: Amanda Kemp
iBUILD Global and iLima Digital Foundary announce a technology partnership accelerating the delivery of affordable housing for Africa

iBUILD and iLima have jointly launched their new partnership to make available innovative technologies for developers within the construction industry.  Both companies are pioneering solutions for greater ecosystem collaboration and the use of technology to accelerate housing construction across Africa and realize that jointly, they can make a powerful difference within the construction sector toward that end.

The initial aim of the partnership is to enable iBUILD users to access the iLima ACIP BIM technology through an embedded viewer on the iBUILD® platform and directly through the iBUILD® app. Secondarily, registered contractors and developers on the iBUILD®  platform will have access to Artificial Intelligence-driven functionality on the iLima Africa Construction Innovation Platform (ACIP). As a third integration point, the collaboration will further explore on-line payments to be made for both platforms using their iBUILD e-wallet.

At the core of iLima’s AI-driven ACIP will be Autodesk BIM360 construction lifecycle management software, tightly linked to the iLima real-time, single source of truth as-built models. iLima brings survey accuracy measurement technology to the construction site, to measure the constructed results continuously and provide navigation, guidance and control to the equipment and operators performing these tasks. 

According to the June 2020 McKinsey report, The Next Normal in Construction, disruptive change is coming to the current highly fragmented construction industry, and it will affect every segment of the value chain.

The construction ecosystem of the future will transform into an industrialized construction process with a more integrated and standardized product-based vs current project-based process. The complete value chain will be consolidated, both vertically by delayering as well as horizontally, with increased focus on digitalization and data-driven products and services. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted socio-economic differences and thus acts as a key catalyst to accelerate change in construction in terms of technological investment and social distancing. 

Lew Schulman, Chairman of iBUILD, states, “The technology partnership with the iLima ACIP Construction Platform will provide iBUILD customers with BIM technology as a plug-on to the iBUILD Developer Module. AI-driven solutions are an important part of our future and iLima is working on products that can be implemented for increased iBUILD value-chain effectiveness.”

Karsten Popp, iLima CEO states, “The partnership between iLima ACIP AI-Construction Platform and the iBUILD SaaS, mobile-enabled platform is a pragmatic leap forward, making a transparent industrialized construction ecosystem a reality.” Karsten further states that, “The need for affordable housing in Africa is huge and according to Shelter Afrique, more than 500 million homes are needed over the next 30 years. The traditional fragmented construction processes and eco-systems cannot cope with this demand.  Africa can be the first mover towards the integrated and transparent industrialized construction ecosystem as proposed by the June McKinsey report. Transparent data-driven integration and collaboration of all stakeholders including technical-legal-financial is key."

About iBUILD Global

iBUILD Global, is an international software company that has designed a mobile app to organize and interface with  a digitized construction ecosystem. The innovative construction app is paired with  developer and lender management software that jointly improves transparency and accountability across both process and project management to accelerate construction quality, budget oversight and completion timelines. iBUILD is eliminating fraud and diversion at an unprecedented rate, ensuring that housing funds are being spent on constructing the asset they were intended to fund.

For further information email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., call +1 800 601 5605 or visit www.iBUILD.global

About iLima Digital Foundary

iLima Digital Foundary is an independent company based in Johannesburg and San Francisco, disrupting the current construction process by harnessing big data and industrialized construction technologies to accelerate the construction of affordable housing for Africa. This will be achieved through our unique AI-driven Construction Innovation Platform (ACIP) matching producers and users across the complete building lifecycle, enabling the building of affordable housing cheaper, faster with more quality and sustainability. Everything Africa ready. 

For further information email Anthony Modena at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., call +27 10 595 2535 or visit www.ilimafoundary.com.  

Issued on behalf of iLima Digital Foundary