Organisers Of Virtual Post GIS Day Competitions Pleased

The National Spatial Data Management Branch (NSDMB) and Land Information Council of Jamaica (LICJ) are pleased with the participation and performance of students and other entrants in the virtual staging of the Post-GIS (geographic information system) Day competitions.

“We are happy that those who participated were able to, and we’re happy that they made the effort to participate,” NSDMB Senior GIS Manager and Trainer, Simone Lloyd, told JIS News.

She expressed pleasure at the involvement of students in particular, given that they are now engaged in online classes.

“So, having an event with multiple competitions, separate from their classes, would have been demanding for a number of them, which is why we were happy that those who did participate were able to,” she said.

Wolmer’s Girls emerged the top winners, having won the most competitions in the event.

The Marescaux Road-based school copped the first- and second-place prizes for the Treasure Hunt, first place for the GIS Bee competition, and second-place prize for the essay competition.

Foga Road High School from Clarendon took home the first-place prize for the essay competition, while the Kingston-based Camperdown High School received the second- and third-place prizes for the GIS Bee and Treasure Hunt competitions, respectively.

May Day High School in Manchester, which had the sole male entrant, won first place for the jingle competition.

All the winners received Alcatel tablets from Spatial Innovision Limited, a long-time sponsor of the NSDMB/LICJ’s GIS Day activities. Other students who performed well received prizes from the NSDMB/LICJ.

The Post-GIS Day event included a map competition for government ministries, departments and agencies with representation on the LICJ.

Entities were required to select a school and work with the institution to create a map of their location. The Urban Development Corporation (UDC), which mapped Port Royal Primary, emerged as the winner with the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) taking second place.

For its victory, the UDC received a drone, which Ms. Lloyd said, “is to aid their work in terms of fieldwork and local capturing of high-resolution drone imagery, to support the geospatial work that they do”.

Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Spatial Innovision Limited, which also sponsored the drone for the map competition prize, Roshaun Clarke, said that the company is committed to increasing spatial literacy among the younger generation.

He noted that the tablets and drone “are tokens of this commitment. The idea is that these prizes will incentivise the school contestants and the winners can use them further in their GIS learning. The drone is ideal for capturing data and punching into a GIS, and the tablets can be used for tech activities as well”.

Mr. Clarke, in sharing some of the capabilities of the drone, informed that the Parrot Anafi system “comes with tons of capabilities. It is a light but robust unmanned aerial vehicle, built to capture videos and images for recreational consumers and geo-professionals. Flight time is 25 minutes. It captures videos in 4K, high-resolution photos, and it has lossless zoom, which is a cool feature”.

Prizes from the virtual Post-GIS Day Competitions were handed over on February 26 at the LICJ’s Geoinformatics Training Centre in St. Andrew.

Awardees arrived at designated times to remain within COVID-19 gathering limits.

The NSDMB and the LICJ are entities under the Ministry of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change.