About

Effective management of civil engineering infrastructure is essential for several reasons including the need to retain the value of the initial investment. Currently, engineers around the world are creating innovative solutions for problems associated with infrastructure planning, design, operations, monitoring/inspection, and maintenance. There exists a need for future stewards of the infrastructure to remain updated continually on ongoing issues and research at various institutions.

The Annual Inter-University Symposium on Infrastructure Management (AISIM) was created to meet this need. The inaugural AISIM event was held on August 6, 2005 at the University of Waterloo. AISIM is a full-day symposium featuring information exchange and networking opportunities primarily for graduate students, but often includes researchers and practitioners including infrastructure agencies, consultants, development banks, and other stakeholders.

In the years since its inception, AISIM has carved out a critical role in graduate education pertaining to infrastructure management. Graduate students from world-renowned institutions, who represent the next generation of leaders in infrastructure management, attend AISIM each year to exchange research ideas and information. Thus, AISIM has served as an avenue for the students to network with their peers (nationally and internationally) and has provided an opportunity for students to interact with global leaders in infrastructure.

One of the few good things to come from the pandemic was the ability to connect and meet virtually. The Virtual Inter-University Symposium on Infrastructure Management (VISIM) was launched in 2022 as a virtual counterpart to AISIM to help establish regular connections across universities. VISIM features student-led talks organized in hour-long sessions throughout university semesters.