SINGAPORE: The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is promoting the use of a mapping technology to school students.

SLA has just organised an inter-school competition on this technology and is going a step further.

It also hopes to work with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to include the ‘mapping’ know-how in school curriculum.

Map planners use the Geographic Information System or GIS to put together all the information about things surrounding a person. To promote the use of this system, SLA has organised a competition called ‘Spatial Challenge’ for pre-university students.

Some 15 schools participated in this competition, but only eight out of 23 projects were shortlisted for the finals.

The eight finalists had to use GIS to find out the services and facilities around them, such as the accessibility of childcare centres and optimising land for retail use in Punggol.

But it was a Raffles Junior College student’s project that won over the judges.

Hu Ching, winner of the SLA Spatial Challenge, said: "Our project is trying to help low-cost entrepreneurs who are starting out on their own to actually select the optimal location for their shop.

"(This is) based on several criteria which they can choose for themselves, such as traffic of youth, traffic of adults, rental prices, transport accessibility and existing businesses around the locations."

However, SLA said it has no immediate plans to use the school submissions.

Residents and businesses within a community can use GIS as a tool to benefit themselves. By collecting data from where they live, they can exchange and discuss information and views on matters that concern them - for example, mapping out the most popular food stalls in the neighbourhood.

So whether it is a community facility or a feature that affects a bigger area, SLA hopes to encourage more groups to use GIS. Meanwhile, its immediate task is to make the inter-school competition a yearly event. - CNA/vm