LSGI Delegation Visited Kazakhstan

 A 20-strong delegation from Singapore and Zurich visited the Department of Land Surveying and GeoInformatics (LSGI) from 16 to 20 April 2018 to learn about underground utility and technologies for Smart City in PolyU and Hong Kong. The study visit was part of the ‘Digital Underground’ initiative in Singapore. Led by the Chief Executive of Singapore Land Authority (SLA), Mr. Tan Boon Khai, and the Future Cities Laboratory of Singapore-ETH Centre, participants included land surveyors and engineers from government agencies in Singapore as well as geomatics experts from Switzerland. The visitors were greeted by Prof. You-lin Xu, Dean of the Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE), and Prof. John Shi, Head of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), who introduced the Faculty and the Department on the first day. Several
case studies were subsepquently introduced in the Underground Utility Survey Lab by Ir. Dr. Wallace Lai and Dr. Janet Sham, who led a field demonstration on different aspects of utility management and survey in Hong Kong. A visit to the Laboratory for Smart City and Spatial Big Data Analytics afterwards gave the visitors a chance to learn from Prof. Shi the latest Smart City development by LSGI, including spatial data infrastructure.
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For the rest of the week, the
delegation was led by Wallace to
visit the China Hong Kong
Society of Trenchless
Technology, Black & Veatch’s
office, the Hong Kong Institute
of Utility Specialists, the
Housing Department, the
Drainage Services Department,
the Survey and Mapping Office
of the Lands Department of the
HKSAR Government.
Various experiences related to
geophysical utility mapping to
“see the unseen”, building
information modelling and
related matters were shared
amongst the participants.
Potential collaboration between PolyU, SLA
and the Singapore-ETH Future Cities Lab was
discussed on the last day of the delegation’s
visit, which ended with a lecture by Dr
Gerhard Schrotter, Director of Department of
Geomatics, City of Zurich and Dr Victor Khoo,
Deputy Director of SLA, on Smart City development in
Zurich and Singapore, particularly with resepect to the
digital underground. It was a
rewarding trip for all
concerned.