I'm Ishini Saparamadu — founder & CEO of Concolabs and a construction-AI researcher. I work at the intersection of quantity surveying, natural language processing, and construction law, turning research into tools that construction teams use on real projects across 16+ countries.
From measuring buildings to teaching machines how to read them.
I graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Quantity Surveying from the University of Moratuwa with a GPA of 4.02/4.2, where I was recognised as the Most Outstanding Graduate. But somewhere between cost plans and contract clauses, I became convinced that construction's biggest bottlenecks weren't technical — they were informational, and AI could solve them.
That conviction became Concolabs, an AI-powered software suite now used by construction firms across 16+ countries. It started with two tools I built myself: Roboclause, an NLP chatbot that interprets standard construction contracts with clause-level references, and MeasureonAir, which automates site measurements and interim payment applications. Alongside building the company, I remain an active researcher at the University of Moratuwa, publishing on NLP for contract interpretation and construction compliance, and I've worked as an Enterprise AI Solutions Engineer at Intelligent Label Solutions.
Along the way the work has been recognised by CICES with the Robin Jones Award in Manchester, by Stanford Seed Spark's pitch competition, by CIOB as one of its top four innovation research projects, and by TiE Women Colombo. I also teach CPD sessions for professional bodies from Qatar to Australia. But the outcome I care most about is simpler: a site engineer getting hours of their day back.
Labour-productivity growth in construction has averaged only 1 percent a year over the past two decades, compared with 2.8 percent for the total world economy. Closing that gap would add an estimated $1.6 trillion in value.
— McKinsey Global Institute, Reinventing ConstructionThe path from lecture hall to founding a construction-AI company.
Began BSc (Hons) in Quantity Surveying at the Department of Building Economics — Sri Lanka's leading technological university.
Received the CICES Robin Jones Award for Innovation & Sustainability for developing software automating construction payment processes during my undergraduate internship. The project won World Bank AHEAD commercialization funding.
Started Concolabs (Pvt) Ltd to bring AI to construction workflows — beginning with Roboclause, an NLP contract-interpretation chatbot, and MeasureonAir for automated payment applications.
Graduated as Most Outstanding Graduate (Vidyajyothi Award); continued as Research Assistant at UoM and Enterprise AI Solutions Engineer at Intelligent Label Solutions, publishing in indexed journals.
Concolabs now serves 97 companies across 16+ countries — from major developers in the Middle East to contractors in Australasia — with a full AI suite spanning design, cost, site, and contracts.
Every workflow a construction firm runs, made smarter by AI. One integrated suite replacing dozens of tools — trained on construction datasets since 2023.
Reads Revit, ACC, CostX, or 2D drawings and returns a priced BOQ with AI rate prediction from the firm's own pricing history.
Describe a building element in plain text, get a 3D model — with live planning and regulatory data pulled in.
FIDIC-trained legal AI answering questions across contracts, 3D models, and project records with clause references.
Site measurements against digital drawings; payment applications and interim certificates generate automatically.
Site teams log progress on mobile — Daily Progress Reports write themselves.
Task assignment, time tracking, and productivity benchmarking for QS teams with per-project messaging.
Enter a plot location, instantly get allowable use, max height, FAR, and a feasibility PDF.
Marketplace of suppliers, builders, and subcontractors with price benchmarking.
NLP for contract interpretation, construction compliance, and the digital transformation of project management.
Comparative evaluation showing how a retrieval-grounded, vector database-powered chatbot performs against ChatGPT for construction contract interpretation.
An architecture for connecting construction's fragmented regulatory and legal information through natural language processing.
Recognition from professional institutions and programmes that have supported this work.
Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors — Innovation & Sustainability, awarded in Manchester, UK.
Winner of the Stanford Seed Spark pitch competition with Concolabs.
Top 5 at TiE Women Colombo, the global platform accelerating women-led scalable businesses.
Most Outstanding Graduate, University of Moratuwa.
World Construction Symposium — AI-driven construction contract analysis.
Top-four innovation research project, Chartered Institute of Building UK; scholarship semi-finalist.
Commercialization funding via the University Business Linkage Cell, University of Moratuwa.
For research applying NLP to construction contract interpretation.
Sharing construction-AI research and practice with professional bodies and universities worldwide.
I designed and delivered a multi-session professional course on digital cost management for the Sri Lankan Quantity Surveyors' Association in the UAE, taking practising QS professionals from traditional cost workflows through BIM-integrated measurement, automated BOQ generation, and AI-assisted rate prediction.
CPD session for Sri Lankan quantity surveying professionals in Qatar on AI in construction workflows.
Ongoing CPD sessions with the Sri Lankan QS community in the UAE on AI in cost consultancy.
CPD event with the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors on AI-driven cost management.
CPD session under the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors on digital transformation in QS practice.
Presented award-winning research on AI-driven construction contract analysis.
Guest talks at universities on construction AI, NLP, and founding a construction-tech startup.
Whether you're a construction firm exploring AI, an event looking for a speaker on construction technology, a researcher working on similar problems, or an investor who believes construction deserves better software — I'd love to hear from you.