Malaysia Budget 2014: My Wish List from Geospatial Perspective

Malaysia Prime Minister and Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will table the 2014 budget in Parliament today. Here are some of my wish list from geospatial perspective:-

A.      On Better Governance and Transparency

1. Greater Transparency from GIS perspective: Strengthen monitoring of the distribution and use of all allocated funds by setting up an online geospatial map and executive dashboard showing budget allocation and progress by location.
2. Safer Malaysia and better law enforcement from GIS perspective: to combat rising crime, enforcement agencies need to be equipped with intelligence-led policing system that can pro-actively preventing and resolving crimes by enabling effective data fusion/ intelligence analysis for both crime and investigation analysis
3. More affordable homes from GIS perspective:  In effort to tackle speculative property prices and provide more affordable housing – government can promote greater transparency by setting up an online geospatial portal showing  data on the transaction prices of properties in easy to visualize intelligence web map that support location analytics and accessible by public through their smartphones, tablets or web browsers.
4. Better public transport from GIS perspective: Improve land transport integration by setting up a geospatial system that has all land transport networks i.e. roads, pedestrian, LRT, rail, special motorcycle lanes, etc. with necessary details for integrated planning and improvement

B.      On Strengthening Public Sectors

1. Set up National Geospatial Council consists of key personnel from government sectors and under purview of Prime Minister department or Ministry of Finance  to spearhead data sharing and collaboration among government agencies
2. Assign at least one (1) Geospatial Information Officer responsible to plan and manage geospatial data in all government agencies
3. Allocation to support continuous geospatial literacy enhancement training for civil servants in all government sectors in view of the rapid technology advancement in software, infrastructure and hardware components
4. Allocation to hire or appoint industry subject matter experts that are well verse in geospatial knowledge to work in agencies (i.e. MaCGDI, MAMPU, PEMANDU, PM Dept, MoF, etc) that can shape the policy and direction for local geospatial industry
5. More allocation for better maintenance of Geospatial IT systems at both federal and state levels
6. Sufficient funds be set aside for state government to set up (for those State that have yet to have GIS Unit) and maintain state geospatial/GIS unit (for those state with existing GIS Unit)

C.      On Strengthening Private Sectors

1. Unlocking economic value through open data and information sharing by allowing free access of web services to meaningful/accurate/timely/up-to-date/large-scale/non-sensitive/nationwide basemap and  imagery through intelligent web GIS technology
2. Include Geospatial and IT as part of program under the 1MET (1Malaysia Entrepreneurship Program) to promote more knowledge economy and job creation

D.      On Strengthening Educational Sectors

1. Allocation to support inclusion of geodesign and geospatial information technology education in the education sectors (tertiary, secondary and primary level) in line with government’s aims to enhance STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education because GIS is STEM.

Malaysia Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award Winner

Every year Esri honours organizations that have used GIS to make a difference and improve our community. Nomination for this SAG award started with careful selection by Esri Staff from thousands of organizations worldwide, then personally reviewed and selected by Jack Dangermond, the President and Founder of Esri. The SAG Award ceremony is held at the annual Esri International User Conference in San Diego and presided over by Roger Tomlinson (widely known as Father of GIS) and Jack.

Last year, Safe City Monitoring System (SCMS) from Federal Department of Town and Country Planning, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Malaysia won the SAG Award Winner for Malaysia. Safe City Monitoring System (SCMS) was developed under an ArcGIS Server Enterprise platform. It is a Web Based Crime Mapping GIS, a work collaboration between Federal Department of Town and Country Planning (JPBD), Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM); and UGISP Sdn Bhd. Police Reporting System (PRS), which has a wide network to major police stations in Malaysia, has been integrated with SCMS, which enables major police stations to facilitate crime location input in digital map form by complainer report. Coordinates and attributes are sent to the SCMS server for crime pattern analysis and statistics using GIS. SCMS is a national effort administered by JPBD. Via Internet, SCMS has helped PDRM and municipal councils to monitor or identify crime locations, which guides allocation of funds (lighting & CCTVs) and human resources (police enforcement, strategic location police presence, community awareness and initiatives) in a joint effort to reduce crime.

For more information about the project, please visit the coverage report in Asia Pacific Futuregov publication here.

This year, Land and Survey Information System (LASIS) of Sarawak Land and Survey Department won the SAG 2013 award and make Malaysia proud. Development and implementation of LASIS involves three main organizations namely :-

• Land and Survey Department of Sarawak as the system owner;
• Information & Communications Technology Unit (ICTU) for funding, standards, policies, and regulations governing State IT implementations;
• Sarawak Information Systems Sdn. Bhd. (SAINS) as the developer and implementer.

LASIS is a GIS-centric land management solution with a single interface and a modular architecture that allows flexibility in implementation based on ArcGIS technology. Land and Survey Department in Sarawak uses this system to maintain up-to-date records of over 935,000 land parcels, providing fast, accurate and easily accessible information to more than 3,000 direct users and serving over 2.5 million Sarawakians with title extracts, maps and statistical reports. LASIS successfully shorten the land title registration process from 30-90 days to 1 day registration with on-line land applications process and instant land title search

Asia Pacific Futuregov publication has the following coverage report about Land and Survey Sarawak and LASIS project with more details.