The Master of Science in Digital Management of Built Assets [MSc (DMBA)] is a pioneering programme that prepares students to lead digital transformation in the built environment. The built environment is undergoing profound digital transformation, confronting challenges such as information integration, safety assurance, digital trust, carbon neutrality, and the sustainable performance of assets throughout their life cycles. MSc(DMBA) offers cutting-edge knowledge about managing and working with digital technologies, like building information modelling (BIM), geographic information system (GIS), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and gaming technologies.

With the learning experience of disruptive digital technologies, students will be able to close the gap between virtual and reality while managing the built assets, for example, through the effective use of a single source of information within a Common Data Environment (CDE) and other digital twin technologies, setting up information requirements for asset owners, developing a successful project execution plan, understanding standards harmonisation across a project’s life-cycle, and integrating Systems of Systems (SoS) and other organisational processes to ensure the built assets can last longer and perform better.

Overall, students, through classwork, case method courses, tech simulations, and semester-long projects, will learn and develop skills in:

• Strategic technology management, developing skills in the direction of digital twin technologies, CDE, BIM, GIS, AI, blockchain and gaming technologies

• Change management in organisations and projects

• Team building, collaborative design, project management and built assets management

• Understanding and managing interdisciplinary and cross-cultural differences in teams

• Understanding the life-cycle of the best-practice project, information and built assets management experiences for the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Owner-operated (AECO) industry

• Broadening their global horizon regarding innovation and contextualising digital tools for a smart built environment on such issues as carbon neutrality and sustainability goals, e.g. the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The course is designed to provide real estate and construction professionals (e.g. facilities managers, asset managers, architects, designers, surveyors, civil and structural engineers) with advanced education in key aspects of the land conversion or development process that involve decisions using digital technologies related to the through-life operation of built assets in both the private and public sectors. We aim to train future digital leaders to drive the transformation of the world’s largest ecosystem and to reshape the next generation of smart built environment in Hong Kong and the GBA region.

The programme is offered with contributions from local industry and internationally renowned visiting professors. It is professionally accredited by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).