15 March 2022
The best and brightest of Victoria’s spatial talent was on show At the Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence (APSEA) Awards held on 10 March.
The APSEA awards are the long-standing premier event to recognise the excellent achievements of both individuals and organisations engaged in the surveying and spatial information industry in this region at a single event.
Land Use Victoria within the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) was recognised for excellence in a number of categories highlighting major innovation, leadership and skills development.
Vicmap Spatial Services in partnership with Frontier SI and Orbica landed the Award for Environment and Sustainability for their Machine Learning Feature Extraction to update Vicmap Vegetation. This project marks the first time machine learning has been used to create and update Vicmap products and will help in a range of land management applications, from bushfires to precinct planning.
The work of Surveyor-General Victoria on the New South Wales / Victoria Border single line Spatial Representation was recognised for the Award for Technical Excellence.
The award acknowledged the project’s analysis of old imagery, surveys and legal opinions to determine the spatially accurate position of the border involving the capture of over 1 million digitised points along 1650 kilometres of the Murray River.
The resulting data set is the first time the spatial representation of the border line has been agreed in 170 years and will contribute to an authoritative state border data set for agencies such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics and emergency response agencies.
Senior Digital Cadastre Adjustment Analyst Jason Heritage was named Future Leader of the Year. This award recognised both Jason’s technical and strategic advice on the Digital Cadastre Modernisation (DCM) project and his leadership as an active member of the SSSI Young Professionals network.
Through the network, Jason’s contribution was pivotal in establishing the Mentoring Program through which he’s provided mentoring support to many young professionals. Jason is making a critical contribution to the DCM program establishing and maintaining highly complex geospatial workflows and automated analysis tools.
The APSEA awards celebrate the achievements of top spatial information enterprises and individuals, and showcase the finest projects and most significant performance of professionals that the surveying and spatial industry has to offer. The annual program is jointly hosted by peak industry bodies SSSI and SIBA|GITA.
You can read about the full set of winners on the APSEA website. The Victorian winners are now in the running for the national Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards held in late May.
In addition to the APSEA Awards, Surveyor-General of Victoria Craig Sandy, in partnership with SSSI Victoria, presented two awards of excellence recognising significant contributions made to cadastral surveying and place naming.
The Sustained Excellence in Cadastral Surveying Award was presented to licensed surveyor Leo Bateman for advocacy on behalf of the profession throughout the restrictions in 2020 and 2021. Through Leo’s work the profession was informed of the impact of restrictions and able to continue to operate. 12 of the 14 past winners of this award were in the room for the presentation and were each acknowledged individually.
The Excellence in Place Naming Award went to Manningham City Council, who named a park wonguim wilam meaning Boomerang Place, for their process of engaging with the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Corporation and the community to achieve the outcome.
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