11th South East Asian Survey Congress

The eleventh South East Asian Survey Congress was held this year in the Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, home town of FIG president Teo CheeHai. Under the congress theme ‘Innovation towards Sustainability', proceedings were opened by the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Dato Seri Douglas Uggah Embas, who urged surveyors to be ‘well prepared to take on new challenges - to venture into new areas of discovery and development, through shared knowledge and creative innovations'.

Broad Coverage

The conference offered broad coverage of the survey profession, from modern geodesy to land administration and valuation, real-estate markets to 3D and Marine Cadastres, and from sustainable construction engineering to software developments. Almost a thousand participants and roughly forty exhibitors took part under Platinum sponsorship of Trimble and ESRI.

Twenty survey experts were invited, including five presidents and president-elects of international organisations: the FIG, RICS, ICA, GSDI and IAG, and FIG president Teo CheeHai. While many speakers were well-known names, some of the most surprising speeches came from ‘outside', really motivating the audience to be different, change the rules of the game, think outside the box, get feedback and innovate.

Not to be Ignored

A total of 138 papers made up the technical sessions, workshops, open forum and technology updates, seventeen presented in the plenary and the rest in other sessions. The plenary sessions covered a lot of ground: World Bank support for sustainable land reform, the Australian experience in improving land information management, and emphasis on the need to use GIS to help people understand complex problems and make better decisions.

Also discussed were issues associated with re-engineering SDI design to support the new vision of spatially enabled government and society. The characteristics of modern geodesy were presented, and how it was helpful to regard applications and technologies as belonging to the broad field of earth-observation science. The real challenge was to make GeoInformation so accessible that it cannot be ignored by policy-makers.

BIF: a Proven Trend

Building Information Modelling was described as a spatial modelling trend which has proven its efficacy. More process-oriented than data-oriented, BIM should both excite and engage our profession, although there are obviously data and legacy issues, as well as technological, to be addressed.

The need for robust valuation runs deep and wide in the financial system, and valuations not only support banking systems but also good corporate governance, as well as providing the key to efficient functioning of property markets. Continual updating of standards and best practice guidelines were important here.

The China forum was interesting, introducing the latest developments from China in terms of survey instruments, GIS software and access to geodata.

Going Green

Many presentations encouraged green behaviour. The message: it's important for the occupier of a building to behave in a sustainable way within a sustainable building.