Committee Profile: Brook Kitson, Treasurer

Brook Kitson is a civil engineer and runs Cardno Sunshine Coast. Cardno is a professional infrastructure and environmental services company with 28 staff locally and 6500 staff around the globe, HQ based in Brisbane. In this role he is also project director for the engineering design and construction of some of the largest master planned communities in Australia. These projects include lead consultancy for the Sunshine Coast’s new Maroochydore City Centre, planned over a 53 hectare site which will adopt Smart City technology and Stockland’s Aura project (Ultimate population 50,000 people).

Brook is passionate about the Sunshine Coast and its economic development and has served for 12 years on the Urban Development Institute of Australia committee, 3 years as Vice president and chair of the economic development subcommittee.

Another passion of Brook’s is the digital economy as related to both the civil engineering profession but also for Start-ups, gamification and innovation. In this capacity he has been on the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) committee and co-run an international Minecraft (100 million registered users) competition to engage students into a visioning process for what they would like to see in the new Maroochydore City Centre.

Through the above projects Brook’s focus continues to be on Smart City and more broadly the Internet of Everything (IOE). Investigating how this technology can be applied to community benefit, civil and building infrastructure and overall environmental benefit.

What do you see as the biggest opportunities on the Sunshine Coast in the next two years? 

With development of the Maroochydore City Centre, we have a great opportunity to lead the country through the continual adoption of technology that encompasses the internet of everything (IOE).

Technology that will provide benefits to the community to make it easier to know what’s going on and how to get around but also technology that will make us better global citizens.  Ensuring that we know what impact we are individually having but also being able to manage this impact, potentially to economic benefit.

What made you want to join the RDA committee? 

In my time at the Urban Development Institute of Australia we were able to make some positive changes for the industry and so using this as a platform I wanted to broaden where I spend my energy to assist the RDA team deliver great outcomes for the wider community.

If you could change one thing about the Sunshine Coast what would it be?

I would like to see the region engaged in educated discussion about growth.  Too many times I see comments voiced that are not substantiated by fact.  Instead of talking about what we don’t want to be, let’s continue talking about what we do want as a region.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is….

Brook continues to focus on expanding his network and furthering the above objectives through his reappointment to the board for Regional Development Australia Inc (Sunshine Coast) and can be contacted on Twitter @BrookKitson

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