4 January 2012 – The geospatial industry looks set to be taken a notch up with the launch of OneMap Challenge. This competition seeks to promote the development of innovative map-based desktop and mobile applications by businesses and the community.

2. The OneMap Challenge provides a platform for application developers to showcase their creativity through the apps they develop to an increasingly tech-savvy population and enterprises, including those represented by the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME) which is one of the competition promotion partners. The Challenge also aims to facilitate collaborations between potential business partners for creating location-based apps that are useful for business enterprises and the general community.

3. Mr Ng Siau Yong, Director of GeoSpatial Division, Singapore Land Authority said, “Geospatial information is fast becoming indispensable in our daily life, at work or at play. We need to evolve a vibrant geospatial ecosystem of content and solution providers to cater to the growth of its use as well as the development of innovative location-based apps. OneMap Challenge is part of our effort to this end.”

4. With two top prizes of $20,000 cash each and other attractive prizes up for grabs, the OneMap Challenge is divided into two categories – Web Applications for applications that run on web browsers and Mobile Applications for those that run on smart phones, tablets and other portable devices. The Challenge evaluation criteria include originality of concept, social or commercial value and its user friendliness. Participants are strongly encouraged to tap on over 45 layers of theme data contributed by various public agencies on OneMap as well as the datasets on http://www.data.gov.sg/. Participants can mash up these public data with commercial and community data for creation of the applications.

Industry development

5. The OneMap Challenge will hopefully provide an impetus to spur the geospatial community into action and develop a whole slew of exciting and useful applications and information offering to the public using OneMap as a platform.

6. Ms Shirley Wong, 1st Vice Chairman of SiTF and Chairperson of SiTF Awards said, “OneMap Challenge is an excellent platform to reach out to the local developers. This will definitely help to nurture local innovations and we hope to see more of such collaborations.”

7. As the geospatial industry gains momentum, there will also be the positive effects of greater sharing and usage of geospatial information and data and the potential to harness this phenomenon to enhance the delivery of commercial and community applications and services to business enterprises and the general populace. This development will be the long term objective of driving the geospatial industry.

8. Managing Director of Esri Singapore, Mr Leslie Wong said, “Today, with cloud computing and the proliferation of smart phones and devices, the use of intelligent maps are reaching to a much wider group of users than ever before. With OneMap Challenge, the community will gain greater awareness on the potential of geographical information systems (GIS); see decision making be enhanced by leveraging on a geographical or location-based perspective; and have access to more information and see a "bigger picture" through intelligent map-based applications.”

9. Visit http://www.sla.gov.sg/OneMapChallenge to learn more about OneMap Challenge and check out the OneMap Facebook page at www.facebook.com/OneMap.

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Issued by:
The Singapore Land Authority
4 January 2012