Over the past few years, whenever the group chat turns to enrollment and employment in university surveying and GIS programs, there is always a sigh. In fact, the lack of young people willing to study surveying and the difficulty of recruiting them is not a situation unique to China. Surveying peers overseas face the same problem. To get young people interested in surveying, an overseas outreach organization has teamed up with more than twenty surveying companies around the world to customize a board game: Monopoly: Surveying Edition. Today I will show you how far overseas peers are willing to go to recruit people for surveying.

The Surveying Edition of Monopoly looks roughly like this:

The Surveying Industry's Dilemma

The project was initiated by Get Kids into Survey, a youth surveying outreach organization. They found that from road and bridge construction, hydrographic surveying, to 3D reality capture and autonomous driving, modern society depends on surveying everywhere, yet it is almost an entirely "invisible" profession in the public eye. Many young people have never even heard the word "surveying" before they enter university. Founder Elaine Ball said that if children have never even heard of the profession, how could they want to enter surveying when they grow up? So they decided to make board games the breakthrough.

What Do You Do in Surveying Monopoly?

In classic Monopoly, players buy land, build houses, and collect rent. In the Surveying Edition, the assets on the board are all replaced by cutting-edge technologies and equipment from modern surveying, such as drone aerial surveying, GNSS positioning, LiDAR scanners, digital twins, hydrographic surveying, and AI interpretation. As children roll the dice and move around the board, they learn to recognize drones, LiDAR, and other equipment. The game even puts scenes such as highways, high-rise buildings, and rivers on the board, so children understand that surveying supports the world around them. In this way, it introduces this ancient trade through play.

Jointly Released by 25 Surveying Companies

What is interesting is that this is not a small team amusing itself. A total of 25 global software and hardware giants and professional organizations have contributed funding and support, including well-known names such as Trimble, LiDAR manufacturer RIEGL, geospatial service provider NV5, underwater engineering giant Subsea7, as well as the FIG Foundation of the International Federation of Surveyors and the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS). Together they have put money and effort into carrying the mission of "coaxing" young people into studying surveying through to the end.

About the Monopoly Board Game

Why Monopoly in particular? This board game can be traced back to The Landlord's Game in 1903. It was later published by Hasbro and became a household family game around the world. More cleverly, the core gameplay of Monopoly has revolved around "buying land, drawing boundaries, and transferring real estate" since its birth, and its underlying logic is naturally deeply tied to surveying. Surveyors spend their entire careers essentially fixing coordinates and drawing boundaries for every inch of land. It really does not feel out of place.

Conclusion

Although this overseas surveying Monopoly has a slightly amusing sense of trying to coax children, it also genuinely reflects some problems in our industry. To be honest, this industry does deter quite a few young people. Fieldwork means exposure to wind, sun, and frequent travel, while office work means overtime drafting and grueling competition over pay and treatment. If there were other jobs that were easier and paid well, who would be willing to do surveying?

Did you study surveying or GIS? Do you regret it? Let's talk in the comments.

References

  1. GIM International, Surveying profession backs Monopoly edition to tackle talent visibility gap: https://www.gim-international.com/news/surveying-profession-backs-monopoly-edition-to-tackle-talent-visibility-gap