The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has recently announced the launch of GeoWorks. Reportedly, this is the first Southeast Asian geospatial industry center in Singapore.
For the uninitiated, geospatial technology, a technology that deals with location-based data is incorporated inside various food-delivery, online dating, ride-hailing apps and drone-flight programming platforms and is pivotal to the functioning of these apps. GeoWorks is expected to provide a considerable boost to the companies that implement this technology.
The fifteen thousand square ft center developed by the SLA contains 22 international Geotech start-ups and will be connected with government agencies and sectoral users. This is apparently aimed at introducing solution providers to firms facing problems, promoting business growth.
Edwin Tong, Senior Minister of State for Law and Health, who oversaw the launch, has been quoted to say that technologies such as these are valuable to the economy and businesses. He further said that while implementing geospatial technology and services, businesses learn innovation and process optimization.
The center will also be supporting the start-ups by supplying open data accumulated by the government and expertise from more acclaimed companies.
AirMap, U.S. based drone management platform is one of the start-ups that has benefited from a collaboration with GeoWorks. The platform requires data about the physical terrain of cities, which was taken using OneMap, a map detailing Singapore.
The center is listed as one of the 13 initiatives within Singapore’s Geospatial Masterplan. The plan released recently will span over 5 years and looks to improve people’s lives, make business processes easier and improve government policy-making utilizing new technologies.
In addition to GeoWorks, initiatives in the Masterplan also include the launch of a 3D city model, called Virtual Singapore, scheduled to be released at the end of 2018.
Mr. Ng Siau Yong, director of the data and geospatial department at SLA, stated that the relatively new geospatial industry in Singapore is valued at about half a billion dollars.