Benoît Descamps

Who is Benoît Descamps?

• Co-founder and head of operations at Kabandy..
• From Brussels, 34 years old.
• Likes architecture, challenges, motivating others to be the best they can be.

The keyword

Kabandy, in Sanskrit, means to connect. And this word perfectly sums up what Benoît Descamps, the company’s co-founder and head of operations, strives to achieve. Building a bridge between the various partners that work on one and the same real estate project, between a traditional sector and new technology. Connecting expertise with experience to achieve the best operational and budgetary management.

A job that is synonymous with innovation

Large-scale real estate projects (public buildings, hospitals and so on) usually involve a large number of different partners, including architects, engineers, various different trades… The owners of the buildings need to manage and oversee all these different partners, but this is also an extremely complex undertaking. Kabandy, which is familiar with the industry’s needs, has therefore developed an operational excellence platform, using a digital 3D model (Building Information Modeling or BIM) to consolidate data and relying on this information to facilitate project management. It provides its customers with visual dashboards, geared towards transparency and collaboration, which makes it easier to manage building projects (quotations and budgetary controls, decision-making, planning schedules and so on).

Thanks to the Kabandy platform, owners have a better and more transparent idea of critical information that is relevant to their building, at every stage of the building’s lifecycle. All the building professionals thus have access to a real estate platform, in the form of a 3D environment, which they can use to better manage operations and generate an ROI.

Kabandy is a spin-off of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and was established in 2016 by Benoît Descamps and Rajan Filomeno Coelho, a lecturer in the BATir department of the Ecole polytechnique de Bruxelles (ULB). At the end of 2018, Georges Caron came on board, bringing his vision and business experience in the construction industry to the project.

An example of a project

“Take an engineering company, which has long-standing expertise and hundreds of scale models”, says Benoît. “Kabandy’s integrated tools can analyse how to pool all these data which belong to the collective intelligence. It uses the available know-how to create indicators and respond more effectively to new projects. This allows the company to save time and provides a sound budget basis, based on past experiences. Moreover, one of the main challenges is to build a bridge between all the partners who must work together on one and the same product: the building. Essentially, the Kabandy platform is the project’s memory, during the building’s lifecycle. It also allows the industry to rethink its approach, and how to work together for better and more efficient management practices. On the sustainability level, finally, the Kabandy platform also helps save space, make optimum use of resources and improves health & safety at work”.

Bruxelles, City of Innovators

Benoît has studied in Brussels and now lives in the city. He thinks the Brussels-Capital Region provides plenty of opportunities for innovation: it is a crossroads of different cultures and is conveniently located in the heart of Europe. As such, you have a pool of very different profiles to work with, including people from different backgrounds, which can be mutually enriching. This is definitely an asset for innovation.

Entrepreneurs and innovators also receive coordinated and consistent support from the Brussels-Capital Region, in the form of funding and guidance. This enables them to invest more in product development, working within a shorter timeframe.

His career

Benoît holds a degree in architecture and engineering, as well as a certificate from the Solvay Business School. He did a PhD under the supervision of Professor Rajan Filomeno Coelho, at the Ecole polytechnique de Bruxelles. While writing his PhD, he had the opportunity to work on large-scale projects, within various engineering consultancy. He soon realised there was a real need for a platform of this kind, which is he partnered with Rajan Filomeno Coelho to develop a toolkit for operational excellence and building management. They founded Kabandy on 11 March 2016. This is his first business experience.

What he likes about his job

• the challenge, in an industry, which requires the coordination of various project partners
• the impact: on buildings and the individuals and how they experience architecture and public space
• the conviction of having ‘set the ball rolling’, in a field in which a lot remains to be done still.

“The future is all about collaboration. Working together has a beneficial effect.”

3 tips for Brussels innovators

• persist in spite of the obstacles
• be confident, and always be humble
• know how to rewrite traditional codes

Technology and construction : facts & figures

• More than 10%: this is the median budget exceedance on large-scale real estate projects, given the large number of partners and due to the fragmentation of the information. 
• The BIM market currently accounts for € 6.5 billion around the world; it has a potential of € 22 billion.