Nation-scale data standards: Lessons from New Zealand's bold digital twin foundation

What does it take to standardise data across an entire nation's infrastructure? Leroy Clarke from LC Strategic Advantage shares four years of frontline experience working with New Zealand's water, transport, and health sectors as they fundamentally reimagine how data supports digital twins at national scale.

This rare insight into a country-wide digital transformation reveals the practical realities of developing and rolling out national data standards, the unglamorous foundation work that determines whether digital twins deliver real value or become expensive disappointments.

What you'll learn:

National standards in action: Discover how New Zealand is developing and implementing data standards across critical infrastructure sectors, creating the consistent foundation digital twins require to operate effectively.

Cross-sector insights: Learn from real-world examples spanning water systems (NZTA AMDS), transport infrastructure, and healthcare data collection pilots—understanding how different sectors approach the same fundamental challenge.

Back to basics success: Explore why the "complete re-write" and "nationalised iterative approach" is proving more effective than technology-first strategies for achieving meaningful digital representation.

Holistic data vision: Understand the challenge of viewing a country's infrastructure data at the level of detail required for practical, actionable work while maintaining national consistency..

The foundation nobody talks about

While others showcase flashy digital twin visualisations, this session addresses the critical question: how do you effectively structure national-scale data so digital twins can actually deliver on their promises?

Real-world complexity

Experience the honest challenges of working with BECA Ltd across multiple infrastructure domains, seeing how national data approaches play out when they meet organisational realities, legacy systems, and diverse stakeholder needs.

Standards, interoperability, and ownership

Learn how strongly structured data formats provide the beneficial framework digital twins need, while addressing questions of data ownership, standards compliance, and interoperable integration at scale.

Perfect for data strategists, national infrastructure planners, digital twin architects, standards developers, policy makers, asset management professionals, and anyone involved in large-scale data standardization initiatives.

About the speaker

Leroy Clarke brings four years of hands-on experience working with New Zealand's national data standardization efforts across water, transport, and health sectors during his time with BECA Ltd. His practical insights reveal what actually happens when national digital twin ambitions meet infrastructure reality.

This is a FREE online event for Digital Twin Hub community members.

Join 120+ data and infrastructure professionals for this 30-minute reality check, including 15 minutes of national-scale lessons followed by interactive Q&A about implementing standards in your context.

Can't attend live? All Gemini Call sessions are recorded and available to the community for continued learning.

Learn from national-scale experience

Discover what works—and what doesn't—when building the data foundation that digital twins need to succeed across entire infrastructure sectors and national systems.

Register for Free

Part of the weekly Gemini Call series - connecting the digital twin community every Tuesday at 10:30am BST.

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