Bandar Seri Begawan - The Minister of Development, Pehin Orang Kaya Hamzah Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Awang Hj Abdullah Begawan Mudim Dato Paduka Hj Bakar, launched the 'Brunei Spatial Data Infrastructure' (BSDI) at Dewan Betabur of the Ministry of Development yesterday morning.

According to Surveyor General Hj Mohd Jamil Hj Mohd Ali, the launching of the BSDI is one of the outcomes from the 'e-Map' contract, which was signed on April 21, 2007 between His Majesty's Government through the Department of Survey and local company Selective Powertech Consulting.

Through this infrastructure, the nation will reduce duplication efforts among agencies and improve quality and reduce costs related to geographic information. The project will also make geographic data more accessible to the public, increase the benefit of using available data, establish key partnerships with government agencies, academia, the public and private sector, and increase data availability.

As the project involves sophisticated technology, various changes have been made during its 12-month implementation. Among the changes were switching the IBM server to Sun Server; Dell Window Server to a much-capable Dell Windows Server; ESRI software to Caris software for Survey and Land Department; and, the addition of Oracle Application Servers for both departments.

Hj Mohd Jamil said that the common points of the 'e-Map' project are the delivery of online mapping, e-Planning for town and country planning, e-Land administration and taxation.

While the BSDI module is ready, the project will only be fully completed by the end of August this year.

In conjunction with the launching ceremony, there was also a special exhibition to educate the public about the latest geomatics technology. Pamphlets on BSDI were also widely distributed.

Among those who took part in the exhibition were Selective Powertech Consulting and its business partners namely CARIS Canada, Maicons, Dell Computer, Trimble and Oracle.

Compared to other countries that have implemented their own Spatial Data Infrastructure, Brunei's one is unique because the BSDI covers data on land and sea and its surroundings including land measurement, evaluation, registration, data, usage of land, planning, master plan and maritime data such as Bathymetric, maritime usage data, borders and its limits and so forth.

In other countries, their Spatial Data Infrastructure is limited to land or sea data only.

The BSDI is basically a combination of technology, standard, access system and protocol that harmonises all of the Sultanate's geospatial databases and makes them available on the Internet.

Among those who witnessed the launching ceremony yesterday were Deputy Minister of Development Dato Paduka Dr Hj Mat Suny Hj Mohd Hussein, Permanent Secretary (Technical and Professional) Dato Paduka Hj Mohd Said POKPS Dato Paduka Hj Hashim, Legislative Council member Dato Paduka Hj Yunos Mohd Noh and Canadian High Commissioner Leopold Battel.