Dr. Abdul Rashid---Executive Summary

Dr. Abdul Rashid Mohamed Shariff has served the Malaysian government for 20 years in various capacities. He started his career in the Ministry of Land and Regional Development in 1983 where he was involved in the preliminary formulation of the national land use policy. While in this position, he was also involved in parliament duties when parliament was in session. Subsequently he served in the state of Perak where he completed the necessary professional training needed for registration as a Professional Surveyor. He served in various capacities ranging from Assistant Director of the Perak Survey Department, District Surveyor for Kinta and Perak Tengah and later for the Districts of Taiping, Larut Matang, Grik and Pengkalan Hulu (Kroh).

In 1991, Dr. Rashid was entrusted with managing the Computer Assisted Land Survey System (CALS) in Johor. CALS was the pioneer computerized land survey system in South East Asia and its success led to the Federal government approving the system for all states in peninsular Malaysia. Subsequently Dr. Rashid served at the National Survey and Mapping Headquarters in the Fast Mapping Division that also catered for the specialized and sensitive needs for the military.

While in the federal service Dr. Rashid was successful in obtaining scholarships in a highly competitive environment to pursue his MSc and PhD. In addition to completing his post-graduate degrees, Dr. Rashid also managed to gain experience by working as a GIS Research Assistant at the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham in 1991 and with the world class National Center for Geographical Information Analysis (NCGIA) in the USA from 1994 – 1996.

Dr. Rashid has held high professional positions such as the President of The Professional Land Surveyors (PLS), Selangor, Wilayah Persekutuan and Negeri Sembilan, Council Member of the Institution of Surveyors Malaysia and Secretary of the National Committee of Geomatic Academicians. He is also very active in research, having published or co-authored more than 80 articles in journals, conferences, workshops, invitational talks and technical reports. He has received a host of awards including being named the best speaker in an international GIS and Remote Sensing conference.

Dr. Rashid has a passion for teaching and student activities. Students have ranked him excellent in teaching since 1999. He is extremely involved in student projects and helped inspire the first ever participation from Malaysia in the Students Mini Tractor Design Competition in 2001 organized by the American Society of Agricultural Engineering (ASAE). He was also the chairman of the project in 2002. In addition to this, he was also the coordinator of the UPM team that got 3rd placing the International GIS poster design competition at Atlanta, Georgia in 2002. He also helped an undergraduate team from the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering gain the Top Ten placing at the Young IT entrepreneur award in 2002.

Although Dr. Rashid is a specialist in GIS and Precision Farming, his work not only helps the GIS and Precision Farming industry and academia only but also industries such as Agriculture, Healthcare, and Environment that depends on GIS. Thus, his work is of significant benefit to society and it is only appropriate that he serves the community that has done so much to place him where he is today.