What does IFC Stand For?

I have just returned from an amazing buildingSMART Summit in Tokyo Japan attended by 469 people from 45 countries, working together to create open digital standards for the built environment.

buildingSMART Japan arranged a wonderful venue next to Tokyo Bay and hosted a memorable dinner where participants made new friends and toasted our success.

I was impressed by the enthusiasm, teamwork and sense of purpose shared by participants from around the world. I was inspired to see people from different countries working together to create new standards. Almost all participants in the summit are volunteers, sharing their time and talent to create open digital standards for buildings and infrastructure freely available for everyone to use. Many people I met remarked at how the Tokyo Summit was the best, most professionally organized in our history, giving them a renewed sense of purpose.

The buildingSMART mission is to transform the global building and infrastructure industries. Our mission is audacious, but can be achieved by teams of people working together across international boundaries as we experienced in Tokyo. Many people know buildingSMART for our IFC Standards. For us, IFC represents something more important — the International Friendship Club -- friends working together to reach our shared dreams.

Patrick MacLeamy
buildingSMART International
Chairman