2 Aug 2013 – For the first time, SLA is using Geospatial Information Systems and Technology (GIST) to educate our youth on Singapore’s historical and green heritage. SLA in collaboration with the National Heritage Board (NHB), National Parks Board (NParks) and the Preservation of Monuments Board (PMB) has organised the Singapore Geospatial Challenge (SGC) 2013, a GIST-based competition for Junior College and Secondary School students with the finals held today at the Asian Civilisations Museum.

2. At SGC 2013, students participate in a scavenger hunt game around the civic district. Armed with a smart phone, student teams had fun using a geospatial application, specially developed by Nanyang Polytechnic’s School of Information Technology (SLA’s GIST Academic Partner), to move around the civic district to “check-in” at various locations to gain points. These locations include heritage sites, monuments and heritage trees. At certain locations, students have to answer quizzes that educate them on our rich historical and green heritage.

3. With the smart phone and the geospatial application, teams can monitor their own progress while they competed against each other. Participants and audience can also track the progress of each team through the use of a giant dashboard that provided live updates of the teams’ scores and routes taken. It also incorporates live tweets from the public, and displays areas of high activity with heat maps.

4. More than 350 students from close to 40 schools are taking part in SGC 2013. Through fun and games, SLA hopes to raise the awareness of geospatial technology and its potential and encourage the use of GIST in schools. The Singapore Geospatial Challenge is an ideal platform for nurturing interest in this field amongst our youth. Supported by the Ministry of Education, the United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (*UNGGIM) and NUS Geographical Society, the challenge is organised for Pre-University and Secondary School students.

5. With the rapid growth of the geospatial industry, the government is committed to growing and supporting the development of the GIST sector in Singapore. A Singapore Geospatial Scholarship (SGS) for undergraduate and postgraduate studies will soon be established. This is the first of its kind in Singapore which will allow the recipients to develop a geospatial career with exposure in various public agencies. Details of the SGS will be unveiled in the later part of the year.

6. SGC 2013 has received strong industry support from Esri Singapore, Microsoft Singapore, Starhub and Nokia.

-End-

Issued by:
The Singapore Land Authority
2 August 2013

Annexes:
Fact Sheet
Annex A: List of participating schools
Annex B: Pictures of devices and preliminaries

About SLA
Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is a statutory board with the Ministry of Law. Its mission is to optimise land resources for the economic and social development of Singapore. SLA is responsible for the direct management of some 14,000 hectares of State land and about 5,000 buildings. It is also in charge of land sales, leases, acquisitions and allocation, developing and marketing land-related information, and maintaining the national land information database through digitised land information services. SLA is also the national land registration authority for property transactions, and the issuance and guarantee of land titles in Singapore. It also manages and maintains the national land survey system, including the defining of boundaries or legal limits of properties based on a coordinated cadastre survey system. For more details, visit www.sla.gov.sg.