10
UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 11 AUGUST 2019
CAMPUS NEWS
In 2014, a teamof staff and students
from the Department
of Geomatics Engineering and Land Management within
UWI St Augustine’s Faculty of Engineering embarked upon
an ambitious project to map the campus and develop a
web-based platform for managing and disseminating the
information.
Now, the ongoing work of that team, the Geospatial
Information Research and Innovation (GIRI) Group,
has been recognised for their achievement by the largest
organisation in the field of geographic information systems/
science (GIS).
On July 10, 2019, the US-based GIS firm Esri, awarded
the groupwith the Special Achievement inGIS (SAG) Award
at their 2019 Esri User Conference in San Diego, California,
to recognise their outstanding work implementing GIS
technology. Winning a SAG Award means the GIRI Group
stood out in a field of more than 100,000 others globally.
Dr Earl Edwards, Lecturer in Geospatial Information
Science at UWI and GIRI Group Team Lead, said he felt
“elated and extremely pleased” by the award.
“The members of the GIRI Group, both staff and
students, have been working hard, donating freely their time
towards this noble cause,” Dr Edwards said. “It gives some
validation to the opinion thatThe UWI does not only impart
theory, as some may believe, but we can also implement
systems to address real world problems that are as good as
those created by GIS practitioners in developed countries.”
UWI Today first covered the work of the GIRI Group
in its August 2018 issue
(see “Mapping the Campus
Inside and Out”
august_2018/article19.asp)
.The systemdeveloped forUWI
St Augustine by the group is referred to as an Enterprise GIS
(EGIS).The inclusion of indoor data in the EGIS is extremely
rare in the region and this implementation is quite possibly
a first for the Caribbean.
“There is this belief that within Trinidad and Tobago
we do not have the capacity to implement such geospatial
technologies and there is always a reliance on foreign
consultants,” Dr Edwards says. “We can save much
needed foreign exchange and help build capacity in the
region by engaging The UWI to assist with some of these
consultancies. This will surely provide an avenue for our
students to have the opportunity to work on real world
projects and gain valuable experience before entering the
world of work.”
Dr Earl Edwards, Team Lead of the GIRI Group
GIRI Group wins international acclaim for
CAMPUS MAPPING PROJECT
Jack Dangermond (left), President and Co-founder of Esri,
presenting the SAG award to GIRI Group member AdamThomas.
The EGIS consisted of four stages. The first was the
mapping of the campus using traditional techniques such
as field surveying complemented with modern techniques
and technologies such as drones and satellite positioning
systems. The second phase involved the measuring of
internal spaces (rooms) to create floor plans for several
campus buildings and a “data model” to store this digital
information. Third was the creation of a comprehensive
database combining both the buildings and their interiors
using GIS software provided by Esri. The fourth phase of
the project was to develop applications to, in the words of
Dr Edwards, “capture, query, analyse and disseminate GIS
data related to the campus”.
One of the goals of the project was to give campus
bodies such as the Division of Facilities Management a
powerful information tool in planning for and maintaining
the campus’ buildings, equipment and other facilities.
“Our campus is a very complex place to manage and
good data is crucial to make it work,” Adam Thomas, a
member of the GIRI Group and an engineering technician
within the Geomatics Department said last year when
discussing the project.
Apart from its work on the campus, the GIRI Group
has embarked on the “Community of Professional Mappers
Initiative”, reaching out to Government agencies to explore
innovative ways of creating fundamental GIS datasets. The
aim is similar to the campus project - give Government
organisations the ability to access the geographic data
required tomake informed decisions andmanage its limited
resources utilising GIS technologies.
“We are getting very good responses (fromGovernment
agencies),” says Dr Edwards, giving the example of the Penal-
Debe Regional Corporation, which has expressed an interest
in being the first local government entity to collaborate with
the GIRI Group.
Founded in 1969, Esri, or Environmental Systems
Research Institute, is the leading international GIS software
provider with over 40 per cent of global market share.
They supply most of the government and private sector
organisations in the region through their distributor,
Spatial Innovision Ltd. UWI is the Caribbean’s number one
institution for training in GIS and offer programmes at the
undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
