buildingSMART Practitioner Is Not A Formality with Karim Abulazm | The openBIM Practitioner 1

This is the first episode of The openBIM Practitioner.

In this series, I talk with people who have passed the buildingSMART Practitioner certification and ask them what the process was really like, what changed for them, and what others should understand before going for it.

My guest in this episode is Karim Abulazm from Germany.

Karim works with BIM consultation, BIM management, and BIM coordination. He is certified as a buildingSMART Practitioner in openBIM coordination.

In this conversation, we talk about what openBIM looks like in real German infrastructure projects, why some clients are starting to require formal BIM competence, and why buildingSMART Practitioner should not be treated as a formality.

Karim shares how he moved from structural engineering into BIM, how openBIM became central to his work, and why the Practitioner certification helped him gain more confidence in coordination, IFC, semantic information, model validation, and project delivery.

We also talk about the reality of the exam.

The main message is clear.

Practitioner is not something you should walk into unprepared.

You need real BIM experience.

You need to understand the tools.

You need to practice.

And you need to take the exam seriously.

What we discuss:

Why Karim moved from structural engineering into BIM.

How openBIM shows up in his work today.

Why Deutsche Bahn takes BIM certification seriously.

What made Karim decide to take Practitioner.

Why the exam is not a formality.

Why practical experience matters before taking Practitioner.

What Practitioner gave him professionally.

What it did not give him.

Why IDS, BCF, IFC, semantic information, and model coordination matter in real projects.

How the certification changed how people saw his openBIM competence.

Why BIM coordinators need to understand more than software.

Who should consider Practitioner.

Why Practitioner can impact your career and project opportunities.

If you are considering buildingSMART Practitioner certification, this conversation will give you a very honest view of what to expect.

Find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petruconduraru/

Questions: petru@bimvoice.com