Singapore, 20 July 2017 – The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has today announced the launch of “OneMap IdeaWorks!”. Bringing together technologists, data scientists and community organisations, the three-month campaign aims to foster co-development of geospatial solutions and analytics through the use of the new OneMap and open geospatial data, in support of the Smart Nation initiative.

2 “OneMap IdeaWorks! will build and strengthen the collaboration among different communities through the use of geospatial information science and technology,” says Mr Ng Siau Yong, Director of GeoSpatial and Data Division, SLA. “We invite community organisations to share their challenges; the technology communities will put their innovative minds together to help tackle the challenges by making use of the new OneMap and open geospatial data.” Challenges could come from any or all of these areas: Community, social services, environment, health, transport and heritage.

3 SLA has engaged several community organisations, such as Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital and Singapore National Stroke Association, who have contributed challenge statements and hope to get ideas and solutions from the technology community. Mr Ng Herk Low, Assistant Chief Executive, SG Enable, an agency dedicated to enabling persons with disabilities, says, “Information and technology play an important role in enabling persons with disabilities to lead independent lives. Through OneMap IdeaWorks!, we hope to see information on accessibility being readily provided to persons with disabilities and their caregivers, helping them to overcome challenges in navigation and route planning.”

4 Start-up groups and tertiary institutions such as NUS Enterprise, Nanyang Polytechnic and SMU Living Analytics Research Centre (LARC) have pledged their support to gather their students, technologists and data scientists to participate in the development of apps, solutions and analytics. Ms Jeanne Liew, Principal & CEO of Nanyang Polytechnic, says, “The long-standing relationship between NYP and SLA has seen the fruitful development of excellent geospatial capabilities. We are honoured that our students and lecturers are working on, and lending expertise to, such a national-scale project. This new OneMap IdeaWorks! project is set to yield excellent data and applications that can improve our lives, plus give communities the tools to connect better.”

5 To date, SLA has garnered 60 challenge statements from 19 community and public agency partners. Seven technology and content partners have pledged their support for OneMap IdeaWorks! Dr Chong Yoke Sin, Chief Enterprise Business Group of StarHub Ltd, says, “StarHub is pleased to support the SLA as the key analytics partner for its OneMap Ideaworks! event. As a home grown company and leading telco data analytics provider, we are excited to help the local developers leverage analytics to build better apps and services for the benefit of the people and communities in Singapore.” “We are very encouraged by the good response and strong support,” added SLA’s Mr Ng, “it goes to show that our technologists and analysts are keen to put their skills and expertise to help the communities.”

6 OneMap IdeaWorks! will conclude on 12 October 2017 with a showcase of apps, solutions and analytics that solve the challenges of the community organisations. From now to then, OneMap IdeaWorks! partners will use the new OneMap Application Programming Interface (API) services, some 300 sets of open geospatial data and data provided by the content partners, and data from their own sources to develop apps, solutions and analytics.

7 The new OneMap is a mobile-centric platform offering location-based information and services for use by everyone. It has been built by SLA’s geospatial engineers based on open source technology as part of geospatial capacity building.

8 Community organisations, technologists and data scientists are welcome to visit http://ideaworks.onemap.sg to post challenge statements or register interest to develop solutions by 2 August 2017.