Blog / Podcast

The Surveyors' Trust were honoured to have Raynuha Sinnathamby, Managing Director, Springfield City Group, present to the members and guests of the Trust's End of Year Networking Event. 

You can watch Raynuha's interesting presentation and hear about the vital role that surveying had in the development of Springfield by clicking here.

A solicitor by trade, Raynuha holds Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees and also a Masters in Business Administration.

In February 2013, Raynuha was appointed Managing Director of the Springfield City Group. Over the years, Raynuha has been closely involved in the building of the Greater Springfield City, now the fourth fastest growing statistical local area in the country.

Greater Springfield is an award winning project encompassing six suburbs and home to over 45,000 people.

Over the years, Greater Springfield has won numerous State and National awards. 

In November 2019, Greater Springfield received the UDIA Qld Awards for Excellence 2019 - Queensland’s Best Development of last 25 years (25th anniversary award).

Paul and Karen Joyce, Directors of She Maps, (proudly supported by The Surveyors' Trust) have put together some wonderful case studies showcasing the fun and variety that can be found in the surveying profession.

Click here to meet Georgia Rooney, who is a Land Surveyor based in Sydney. See the 3D fly-through and detailed floor plan that Georgia created of the Powerhouse Museum to maintain the building's structural integrity long-term.

Click here to meet Lauren Holland, a Land Surveyor who is based in the UK. Lauren's favourite project to date is scanning Wilston Churchill's Old War Office.

For more information on She Maps, visit: https://shemaps.com/. 

The Board of The Surveyors’ Trust has appointed Simon White as the organisation’s first Chief Executive Officer.

Simon has a background in international project management and strategy consulting in rapid growth, tech-based companies, and development of membership based organisations.

Simon holds a Bachelor of International Business, Bachelor of International Law and an MBA. He is qualified in Governance and Framework development in Cyber Security Risk.

Alongside the Board of The Surveyors’ Trust, and in conjunction with industry peak bodies, Simon will advance the national footprint of the organisation and expand the Trust’s involvement in strategic projects to strengthen the spatial sector.

Simon can be contacted via:CEO@thesurveyorstrust.org.au.

The Surveyors’ Trust is recruiting a newly created General Manager position in collaboration with Holly Tattersall at Digital Talent Co.

This marks an important moment in the organisation’s history as we further invest in the expertise and sustainability of Australia’s surveying and spatial industry.

Should you have any questions or wish to apply please contact Holly directly on 0400 356 656 or holly@digitaltalentco.com.au

Or click here for more information on this exciting role. 

In this informative interview with Dr Karen Joyce from She Maps we discuss:

• How much technology has changed over the past 20 years
• How She Maps came about
• How important it is to introduce girls to spatial sciences as well as science, maths and technology generally
• Breaking stereotypes of scientists ie. science isn't necessarily chemistry or solely conducted by men in labs. Women make fantastic scientists too
• Students can do anything that they put their mind to
• Geospatial is the science to be in!

She Maps started in 2016 as a result of a presentation that Karen did at the local schools as part of Science Week. At the primary school level there was a huge level of engagement, but at the high school level Karen noticed no girls were attending the drone events.

Karen and her husband Paul put on a drone day for girls only and it attracted 60 girls and became two half day sessions. Word spread and other schools wanted the same program and She Maps was borne from the demand of the teachers and students.

How is She Maps different?

All of the She Maps programs replicate real world applications and students experience a "day in the life" of  a geoscientist.

Typically students will use drones to capture environmental or disaster data that mimics what drones are used for in real life while imparting vital skills and knowledge and developing problem solving skills.

Impacts

As the programs continue to rollout, we are starting to see girls choosing geospatial work experience opportunities in greater numbers than noted previously.

Future

She Maps is expanding with 12 people trained to run programs in other countries. We will continue supporting our trainers, empower people in other countries to share our vision and to introduce more girls to STEM opportunities.

The Surveyors' Trust has supported She Maps with free drone and spatial training for Queensland teachers.

For more information visit www.shemaps.com. 

In our second interview with Dr Karen Joyce from She Maps we discuss:

• Emerging technologies in the spatial field
• Research in the spatial industry
• Drones for Mapping

Karen's career began with a research project on Heron Reef studying reef impacts using satellite data.

One of the challenges during that time was the need for technology that could fly over the reef close enough to capture detailed information not available via satellite.

Drones are now used to map live coral and count sea cucumbers (among numerous other applications) and bridge the gap in detailed data capture.

"Drones are getting smaller and cheaper and we can take this technology into schools which means everybody can now get involved in drones," says Karen.

The biggest industries using drones are humanitarian then followed by the film industry, defence, mining and agriculture. Science is a smaller segment being driven by other industries.

Karen is also involved in guest editing the Remote Sensing Journal and the Drones Journal to encourage more women to publish in open-access, scientific publications.

She is actively involved in promoting equality for women in spatial sciences and is involved in Homeward Bound for women in STEM leadership roles. This is a 10 year program that includes a voyage to Antarctica with 80 other women in science leadership.

Karen is also involved in Drones for Mapping through her research and teaching. It teaches people in industry how to get into mapping using drones through online training.

For more information, visit www.shemaps.com. 

In this third video in our interview series with Dr Karen Joyce from She Maps, we talk about:

• Some of the downsides of the increased accessibility of drones for all members of society
• The difference between an amateur using off-the-shelf technology and the value a trained specialist brings to commercial situations
• People don't know what they don't know and in some situations, low-cost service providers are not delivering the precision and accuracy of a trained professional

At She Maps one of our opportunities is to educate the consumer on the value of surveying.

"Drones are there for the taking and should be used by licensed surveyors. Drones fit fairly and squarely in the spatial industry," says Karen.

We need to educate consumers about the value of having a trained professional with the right skills and knowledge providing the data and the information.

She Maps is producing a book for school children to introduce them to spatial sciences in the early years. 

For more information visit www.shemaps.com. 

In this video interview, hear from Ian Mathieson and Bryan McLennan from Tenure Solutions about their Land Registry project that will capture greater details of land ownership across jurisdictions.

Click here to watch the video.

The concept for Tenure Solutions’ Registry project started in Papua New Guinea where there are eight million people but only three percent of the land area has any formal land title. The rest is known as customary land (or native title). The challenge is that customary landowners do not have land titles that are recognised by banks and therefore the land can’t be used as security for borrowing.

In recent years, Ian Mathieson and Bryan McLennan, Directors of Tenure Solutions, have spoken with the major banks in Papua New Guinea and received assurances from them that a privately-owned land Registry that would record ownership and interests not recorded in government registries could be worth developing. It was then recognised that a non-government registry could operate across different jurisdictions and potentially provide titling services anywhere in the world where there is a need. Tenure Solutions was established to develop a private Registry that would record ownership and interests not recorded in government registries was included as a major plank in the business plan.

Ian Mathieson

Bryan McLennan

In Australia there are a lot of interests in land and property that government Land Registries don’t or inadequately record such as licenses and native title.

The Tenure Solutions group has been looking at ways to provide opportunities for people to record their interests in a property differently from the normal land titles process. Planning legislation covering rural areas in Australia is generally very restrictive with regard to what can or can’t be subdivided. For example, for land zoned Rural in South East Queensland the minimum size of a subdivision is 100 hectares which doesn’t allow a landowner to sell off a smaller parcel.

Ian and Bryan explain their Registry in more detail:

“We have been looking at the concept of applying company title over a wider range of situations than is currently the case, such as rural land and urban properties that can’t be strata or community titled. An example of company title in Brisbane is Torbreck, a large unit complex in Highgate Hill. The complex and the land are owned by a company; unit owners buy shares in the company and gain exclusive use to their apartment. Other examples include the Jetty complex at Noosa and the Starlight Community in Yandina, as well as many apartment and office suite buildings in Brisbane. The concept is also very popular in Sydney around the Harbour.

So our company is looking at different ways that people can have their interests in a property recognised so that a lending institution will allow that interest in the property to be used as security for lending.

And secondly, we are setting up a private registry to record those interests. This Registry won’t have the restrictions that a government land registry has. For example, if a company owns the property, you can have greater freedom to make changes within the boundaries. Much wider datasets can be recorded.

In terms of developing our services, the provision of company title services is up and running. For effective and efficient operation of company title we took a leaf out of how Community Title works and we married those with an analysis of the operation of existing company title properties, plus the rules of ASIC (probity and governance). This has been done in conjunction with top property lawyers.

It is now time to think about the second leg of our plan which is the Registry. The Registry will register a broader range of interests than what is captured under a government Titles Office. It will encompass different levels of spatial accuracy. Titles offices are very precise about the level of accuracy for surveying. Ours will encompass such precision as well as broader definition using GPS and physical descriptions among others.

Our Registry will encompass diffused notions of ownership and ownership flexibility. Generally, Titles Offices recognise only one level of ownership and some interests. However in some areas it is not settled as to who owns the land, or there is an overlap of claims. Our Register will help identify where competing claims exist to allow for negotiation. We will also include a wide range of supporting documentation including sketches, lines drawn on aerial or satellite images, audio or, in the case of customary ownership, videos of traditional owners recounting family history. Because we can encompass a wide range of support data and make it accessible our Registry will provide a platform for resolution of issues in any jurisdiction where there are sets of mixed interests.

In Australia some Titles Offices don’t, or inadequately, recognise Native Title. We believe our variety of tenure options together with our Registry will fill that gap.”

Tenure Solutions is undertaking three stages to build the Registry:

1. The first stage involves creating an expandable, multi-layer database and setting up the web tools and pathways with different levels of access. Then populating the database with a variety of datasets covering a small pilot area in South East Queensland; this will include Native Title, Council and Titles Office data.
2. Then we will expand the Registry across a larger geographic area, first, South East Queensland and possibly Northern New South Wales, as a scale proving exercise.
3. Then we will commercialise the Registry and go out to meet a variety of market needs including national and international expansion. in Australia, this will include agency links to all Titles Offices.

The Registry will meet a wide variety of needs. It will be useful to anyone who wants to engage with a financial institution to borrow money while offering the security of their entitlement. They would get solid documentation from the Registry.

The Registry will allow surveyors to generate a lot more intellectual property both nationally and internationally. It will create an income stream for organisations like The Surveyors’ Trust to reinvest in the spatial industry.

The Registry will also create a broader scope of work for surveyors.

Antony Schmidt, Chairman of The Surveyors’ Trust has congratulated Ian and Bryan and the Tenure Solutions Board for their vision to improve how land ownership is recognised and recorded.

“In the future, the Tenure Solutions Register may well reduce ambiguity over land ownership and create commercialisation opportunities for land stakeholders,” he said.

For more information visit www.tenuresolutions.com.au.

In this video interview, hear from Majid Doost and Nat Marsden how Point Share Plus works and the value that it creates for spatial professionals working with large data sets.

Click here to watch the video.