Community Impact Award:
Veris & Cardinia Shire Council for their Sealing the Hills project.
Cardinia Shire Council utilised advanced 3D technology, including ground penetrating radar and mobile laser scanning, to upgrade their town centre and road infrastructure. This innovative approach helped identify tree root systems, enabling adjustments to road designs that protected hundreds of trees and reduced costs by more than $300,000. Additionally, they used 3D flythroughs to improve community consultation and minimise opposition. This project demonstrated the Council’s commitment to the triple bottom line, focusing on reducing environmental impact, cutting costs, and enhancing community engagement while effectively utilising geospatial expertise to manage resources and utilities. Judges praised this pioneering approach for its innovative use of geospatial knowledge and systems to support the community and resource management.
Environment & Sustainability Award:
Spatial Vision, ThinkPlace & Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water for the Environmental-Economic Accounts Dashboard.
The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting represents an international framework that links environmental and social considerations within our economic perspective. Notably, the EEA Dashboard stands out as a pioneering website that offers a captivating and interactive platform for presenting land and ocean accounts published by the ABS. Through an array of engaging maps, tables, and charts, it unlocks the valuable account data, rendering it accessible for a wide spectrum of policy and planning endeavours. A distinguishing feature of the Dashboard is its ability to extend the scope of published accounts to dynamically calculated geographies, including those defined by the users themselves. Judges have commended the EEA Dashboard for its exceptional design, rendering it remarkably user-friendly for generating geospatial insights and analysis.
Geospatial Enablement Award:
The Department of Transport and Planning for Vicmap 3D Buildings.
Land Use Victoria’s remarkable achievement lies in the delivery of Vicmap 3D Buildings, a transformative foundational dataset that seamlessly encapsulates both 2D and 3D representations of Victoria’s built environment on a statewide scale. Delivered through the Digital Twin Victoria program, Vicmap 3D Buildings collates high-quality building data, including licenced and open datasets, enabling councils, planners and community to visualise accurate building models. Vicmap 3D Buildings is openly accessible on the DTV platform, where it offers an encompassing view of Victoria’s four million built structures, thus democratising powerful geospatial intelligence for broader audiences. Additionally, for specialist users seeking in-depth analysis, the product is readily available upon request. Judges hailed this initiative as an outstanding open data authoritative service.
Innovation Award for Medium to Large Businesses:
The Department of Transport and Planning & Archistar for the eComply: Digital Twin for Building Compliance project.
Digital Twin Victoria, in collaboration with technology partner Archistar, has created the eComply framework, revolutionising building approvals with digital twin rules-as-code assessments. eComply utilises geospatial data, BIM-based house designs, and digital twin analysis to automate compliance testing. Judges praised this project for pioneering practical applications of digital twins, streamlining planning and approvals processes through innovative technology integration.
Technical Excellence Award:
The Department of Transport and Planning for Pioneering operational Geo-machine learning at scale: Automated waste tyre detection across Victorian Agricultural Land.
Land Use Victoria’s Data Science team has devised a repeatable Geo-AI method using high-resolution aerial imagery to precisely locate silage production sites, identify individual waste tyres, and detect large tyre storages. Their findings of over one million tyres across Victorian agricultural land illustrate the method’s efficiency for government and regulatory agencies. Judges commended this as an excellent application of machine learning and satellite imagery to address a specific issue.
Award for Workforce Development and Inclusion:
Winyama for their Indigenous Mapping Workshop Narrm.
The Indigenous Mapping Workshop (IMW) Australia, an initiative by Winyama, an Aboriginal-led digital solutions company, strives for full Indigenous participation in the digital economy. IMW provides culturally appropriate geospatial technology training to Indigenous individuals, supporting Indigenous rights and interests. In this year’s workshop, held at the University of Melbourne’s Wilin Centre in Narrm, 83 First Nations people collaborated with industry and Government to promote the connection of lands and waters for the preservation of Country, tradition, and culture. Judges praised this well-designed initiative for its far-reaching impact in creating equity within the industry for a marginalised group.
Postgraduate Student Award:
Mai Nguyen
Mai Nguyen, the recipient of the Postgraduate Student Award, conducted her project at Monash University. She has made exceptional contributions to the field of geospatial technology, leading to transformation and inspiration. Through her innovative solutions, Mai has revolutionised geospatial data analysis, visualisation, and interpretation, with a particular focus on road construction. Her pioneering work has resulted in significant advancements, improving road long-term performance, cost optimisation, safety management, and construction efficiency. Judges commended this highly technical and innovative project, expressing anticipation for better quality roads in the future based on this outstanding research.
Educational Development Awards:
Davood Shojaei and Nick Buzza
Dr. Shojaei, a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, is recognised for his pioneering work in 3D land and property information within the field of spatial science. He utilises digital technologies to tackle industry challenges and has successfully brought advanced geospatial technologies to students. His efforts in securing grants for updating university equipment have been highly commendable, earning him praise from the judges for his passion and dedication.
Nick Buzza, the winner of the NSW Educational Award, is based in Victoria and has been a part-time teacher of surveying and spatial information services at TAFE NSW for over eight years. His extensive knowledge of spatial systems and data has been pivotal in aid-related deployments overseas and is currently instrumental in leading the delivery of the Certificate IV in Surveying and Spatial Information Services to the AGO at Bendigo. This Department of Defence program focuses on training personnel in the use of spatial information systems, data analysis, and image interpretation. Nick’s dedication to education and his contributions to the field have been highly valued, earning him this prestigious award.
Diversity & Inclusion Award:
Melinda Borg
Melinda, a Principal GIS Consultant at Advisian, boasts extensive experience as a geospatial professional and leader, providing solutions to government, construction, and engineering consulting sectors. She has held various roles with the Victorian Committee for SSSI and has been a key figure in the annual delivery of the Locate Conferences Australia, serving as a Director. Melinda’s contributions to the Locate Board’s Subcommittee for Diversity and Inclusion have been instrumental in implementing inclusion and diversity frameworks for Locate23’s program success. Her proactive role in extending diversity and inclusion within the geospatial industry earned her the Diversity and Inclusion Award, with judges commending her as an impactful leader guiding decisions on inclusion for diverse speakers and representatives in geospatial events.
Future Leader of the Year Award:
Oscar So
Oscar, currently a Geospatial Analyst at Australia Post, stands out as a passionate young geospatial professional who has made substantial contributions to the Geospatial Council of Australia and SSSI. He currently serves as the Chair of the National YEP Committee and previously chaired the Victorian YP Committee from 2021-23. Oscar also played a key role as the Lead organiser of the mentoring program from 2021-22. His leadership has led to the successful execution of strategic visions, resulting in increased positive feedback from event attendees and higher retention rates. Judges praised Oscar for his outstanding contributions, noting that he goes above and beyond in the field, especially considering his career level.
Craig Sandy, Surveyor-General of Victoria, also presented two special awards.
Excellence in Geographic Place Naming Award: Joint winners – Barwon Coast for the Bukareeyoo naming proposal; and Mornington Peninsula Shire for the proposal to name the Pauline Powell Walk.
Sustained Excellence in Cadastral Surveying Award: Raymund Francis Earls
Congratulations to all our award winners!
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