After the great response to our 1st digital GEFMA Lounge 2021, where we addressed the question of how the digitalization of existing and new buildings can succeed, we wanted to delve deeper into the evaluation of large amounts of data with the next event. A buzzword that is increasingly being used in this context is artificial intelligence. AI can be applied to almost any process in the value chain, analyzing and improving it and deriving forecasts and recommendations for action. Nevertheless, there is skepticism about its potential applications in the real estate industry.
At our 2nd digital GEFMA Lounge on May 19, 2021, we hosted Sascha Donner, co-founder and Chief Innovation and Product Officer of EVANA AG, as an expert on artificial intelligence in our industry. He provided us with exciting insights into the fields of application of AI using the company's own platform EVANA360. He highlighted the importance of people as a decisive factor and emphasized that successful digitalization and application of AI requires the right corporate culture that is open to new technologies and willing to make mistakes. Currently, only 1% of the most promising start-ups in Germany are based in the real estate sector, even though some companies have already successfully demonstrated that the use of this technology in areas such as document and data management, property valuation and building management systems can offer an enormous increase in efficiency in the real estate sector.
We are delighted that over 100 GEFMA members and people interested in FM share our enthusiasm for this topic and would like to thank everyone for their active participation and the discussion about the current level of maturity in the industry. Many thanks to all participants and once again a big thank you to Mr. Donner for his informative contribution!