Geospatially Africa Podcast |The Podcast for the Geospatial Community. GIS, RS, Drones, Technology
By Geospatially Africa - The Podcast for the Geospatial Community| GIS, RS, Drones
Geospatially Africa Podcast |The Podcast for the Geospatial Community. GIS, RS, Drones, TechnologyJan 31, 2023
The intersection of GIS and SQL: How Spatial SQL is Changing the Game
Spatial SQL, also known as SQL for Geographic Information Systems (GIS), is a powerful tool for working with and analyzing geospatial data. In this podcast, we will explore the capabilities of Spatial SQL and how it can unlock the power of geospatial data in various fields and industries.
Matt Forrest spoke about
1️⃣ Commons hurdles with getting started with Spatial SQL 🎯
2️⃣ Learning Spatial SQL 📘
3️⃣ Spatial SQL on the cloud ☁
Towards the end, he shares an interesting project he is working on, which a lot of people would be interested in/
Get the show notes here
Get in touch with Matt Forrest
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Africa Geospatial Innovation - a spotlight on Locana in Africa
Geospatial innovation in Africa is growing and Locana is learning a lot from this through their work in Africa. We sit down with Todd Slind, Locana’s Vice President of Emerging Markets, who also leads the Open Data & Development (OD&D) unit, to discuss some of their numerous projects within the African space, and how they help foster collaborative development (cross-fertilization) between Africa and the rest of the world.
Tune in to know about the work they have done and some of its impact on socio-economic development across Africa.
In this episode Todd discusses;
Some past and current projects he is excited about within Africa, Innovative usage of OpenStreetMap data in disaster relief. Their approach to new spatial data types and making it more accessible to ordinary users, such as organizations in need of such data. Opinion on open-source vs proprietary dataConnect with us at https://twitter.com/geospatialy
Visit our website https://geospatiallyafrica.com
Find out how to support https://geospatiallyafrica.com/support-us/
Geospatial Data Version Control with Kart
Kart provides distributed version control for geospatial and tabular data. Kart stores geospatial and tabular data in Git, providing version control at the row and cell level, it also provides repository working copies as GIS databases and files, and allows edit to be done directly in common GIS software without plugins.
See the show notes
Get to know more about Kart https://kartproject.org/
Kart on GitHub https://github.com/koordinates/kart/
Connect with Hamish on Twitter https://twitter.com/polemic
Connect with Iniobong https://www.linkedin.com/in/linibenson/
Connect with us at https://twitter.com/geospatialy
Visit our website to learn how to support https://geospatiallyafrica.com/support-us/
Getting Started with Africa Geoportal
Well, if you didn’t already know that, this episode introduces you to the Africa Geoportal powered by ESRI. In this episode, Opeyemi sits down with Pauline Okeyo, the Solution Engineer at ESRI Africa who supports the Africa Geoportal project. She takes us behind the scenes of this initiative.
Questions answered include:
· How to get on board (A simple sign-up)
· Some details on tools and resources available (Tools, Datasets, Training)
· What inspired this initiative by ESRI
· What do we mean by free forever
· About credits
· Current user statistics
Links mentioned:
Africa GeoPortal Signup
Digital Earth Africa on Africa Geoportal (Data, Explorer App, Training)
MapRI Storymap
GEO Week 2022 Registration
Africa Symposium Registration
Connect with Pauline on LinkedIn
For more episodes, go to geospatiallyafrica.com/episodes
Find us on Twitter and LinkedIn
Volunteering to build your portfolio
Building your portfolio as a geospatial professional is important, even more so are the experiences that make up the portfolio. In this episode we sat down to talk about volunteering as a way to improve your skills and build your portfolio.
We also explore the types a well as organizations that you can volunteer you geospatial skill to.
Below is a summary of the benefits of volunteering covered in this episode;
a. Developing technical as well as soft skills
b. Gaining experience working with global teams
c. Confidence building (in your skills and abilities)
d. Working on projects you can showcase in your portfolio (seek permission before you can showcase them as your own)
e. Gain valuable real world/Industry experience.
f. Expanding your network
We also covered how to get started volunteering for the following organisations;
Some Organizations to volunteer with
c. GIS-E
d. GRMI
f. YouthMappers
g. HOTOSM
h. MapAction
i. MapRoulette
j. MapSwipe
k. Greenstand (Can volunteer as GIS Developer)
The skills you gain from volunteering could be invaluable; they could add up to your experience and might just be the ticket you need to land your next job. It could also tell recruiters that you are passionate about making a positive impact.
To suggest more geospatial volunteer opportunities and organization. Send us an email at gspatially@gmail.com or on Twitter.
Follow us on twitter @geospatialy
We are happy to connect with you on LinkedIn
Spatialnode - A Portfolio Platform for Geospatial People
What tool is currently taking the geospatial world by storm, making it easier to get a comprehensive, sharable portfolio done in minutes. Well, its Spatial Node!
In this episode, your hosts Opeyemi and Iniobong, Speak with Spatial Node founder and CEO, Emmanuel Jolaiya on what it takes to create such an amazing tool.
The discussion revolved around
Emmanuel's Background The problem that birthed Spatial Node as the solution More features to look forward to on Spatial node in the coming months The role of open source in building the platform and the tools and technologies used And a little hint on how to build and maintain valuable partnerships to further your goalsListen through for these and more in this awesome Mid-Year episode!
Some link from this episode
Let's connect with on Linkedin
Getting Started with OSGeoLive
OSGeoLive is a self-contained bootable DVD, USB thumb drive or Virtual Machine based on Lubuntu, that allows you to try a wide variety of open source geospatial software without installing anything. It is composed entirely of free software, allowing it to be freely distributed, duplicated and passed around.
It provides pre-configured applications for a range of geospatial use cases, including storage, publishing, viewing, analysis and manipulation of data. It also contains sample datasets and documentation.
We spoke to Enoch about OSGeoLive and how to get started with it. He spoke at the State of the Map Africa conference on "Beyond mapping! Reusing OpenStreetMap Data and FOSS4G". This episode is the 2nd installment of the SOTM series and here Enoch dives deep to the discussion about OSGeoLive, his passion for Open Source and what he hopes to see in the future and the growth of Open Source software.
More info on OSGeoLive
Connect with Enock Seth
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GIS In Business - AddisMap
They are currently working on OpenPlaceGuide - a continent-wide iteration of AddisMap, which will serve as an open source business directory, based on the OpenStreetMap, and which the public can also contribute to it.
Links
AddisMap
Alazar's talk at SoTM Africa
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Using Drones in Remote Sensing
Drones are becoming more available and are utilized for different operations, playing a big part in Remote Sensing efforts, including small and large scale mapping projects and they are also deployed for monitoring and disaster mapping, among other uses.
So, in this episode Opeyemi hosted Adeola Akinwale a GIS Project Manager at Asseco, and a Drone pilot who is working with her team in mapping Lagos, Nigeria using drones. She is also the founder of SheFlies - an initiative where she support ladies start their career in the drone industry. Listen in a hear about her journey and how the project she has worked on has shaped her career and why she start the "She Flies" community...
Useful Links
Lagos state SDI maps.lagosstate.gov.ng/map
SheFlies Community on LinkedIn
ADDA (Africa Drone and Data Academy)
Find us on
Twitter @geospatialy
LinkedIn @Geospatially Africa
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GIS for Energy Needs Assessment
Ever wondered what GIS can do in the energy sector, from needs assessment to supply planning and distribution. With the world looking towards more sustainable supply and management of energy, in this episode, learn how GIS plays a part as Opeyemi had a chat with Akansha Saklani of the World Resources Institute (WRI).
Akansha also introduces us to the Energy Access Explorer (EAE), an amazing open-source energy access tool that is powered entirely by GIS and open source data and technologies, and its launch in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The platform use GDAL (Geospatial Data Abstraction Library) at its core, alongside Postgres Database and PostgRest for API call.
Useful Links
#EAE #FOSS4G #SustainableEnergy #needsassesment #GDAL
The future is Geospatial
In this first episode of the 2022, we had a general discussion around Geospatial trends to look forward to in 2022.
Some of the topics we discussed were:
Miniaturization of Technologies or Sensors Geospatial AI LiDAR Landsat 9Our feedback form is still live, so please use this form to give us some feedback
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Connect with the hosts
2021 in Review and Awards in the Geosphere
Wrapping up the year with this bonus episode, where Iniobong Benson discusses the podcast's highlights for the year from an episode about being a geospatial engineer, mentoring, to state of the map Africa conference, as well as #recognitionawards in the #geosphere .
One interesting thing is the opportunity for our listener to learn from each guest and from the topic discussed. And for us the host the ability to constantly improve the quality of the podcast with the addition of each new episode. We truly appreciate the feedbacks we get from you the listeners and subscribers and for giving us the chance to be one of your favorite geospatial podcast.
Thank you all for making this a success for us!
Please use this form to give us some feedback
Some Episodes
Being a Geospatial Engineer Digital Mapping in the Humanitarian context with Janet Chapman (Crowd2Map) Mentoring and Volunteering in the geospatial industry Introductions Our Why and Some News! State of the Map Africa - bringing OSM communities in Africa together. Introducing the Digital Earth Africa platform Using Geospatial Technology in Geohazard mapping saves livesSome Geospatial awards
Geospatial World Excellence Awards : The Geospatial World Awards are an internationally-acclaimed premium awards recognizing individuals and organizations behind remarkable innovations and ideas in the global geospatial industry. Initiated in 2007, the awards have recognized over 200+ individuals and organizations till date. (C2M 2020 winner under crowdsourcing)
Geospatial World 50 Rising Stars : The Geospatial World 50 Rising Stars is an initiative by Geospatial Media and Communications to highlight the outstanding accomplishments of young individuals who are proactive and passionate about the value of geospatial technology to the economy and society. In 2021, 50 profiles were selected out of 250 nominations. One of our guests Laura Mugeha was one of the winner in 2021. (Podcast Episode - Being a Geospatial Engineer)
Nominations for 2022 are open till Dec 31st 2021. Form
OSGeo Sol Katz Award : Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software (GFOSS) is awarded annually by OSGeo. This award was won by Anita Graser in 2020.
Others
Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award - ESRI: Awarded during ESRI User Conference and is usually awarded to organisations…not individuals.
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Connect with the hosts
Being a Geospatial Engineer
On this episode, Opeyemi spoke with Laura Mugeha - a Geospatial engineer about what it takes to be a geosaptial engineer, her journey and advice for those looking to start out as geospatial engineers.
Laura is a Geospatial Engineer working in the intersection of open technology, open data, and development. She currently works with a social enterprise in Kenya to support teams in using data for good. Additionally, Laura is a YouthMappers regional ambassador where she supports chapters in East and Central Africa. In her free time, she volunteers with local open data and FOSS communities.
In the news
#GISDay 2021 was amazing
ADDA scholarship for African youths
PostGIS Day 2021 was held on 18th November. Youtube channel
State of the map happened 19th - 21st
HOT Summit was held on 22nd November
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Digital Mapping in the Humanitarian context with Janet Chapman (Crowd2Map)
Crowd2Map Tanzania is an entirely volunteer crowdsourced mapping project that has been mapping putting rural Tanzania on the OpenStreetMap since October 2015. They have been adding schools, hospitals, roads, buildings and villages to OpenStreetMap with the help of volunteers worldwide and on the ground in Tanzania and have trained over 16,000 remote mappers from all over the world to map from satellite images and over 3000 field mappers to add their local knowledge to these base maps, mostly using the free smartphone app Maps.Me.
Opeyemi sat down with the Founder - Janet Chapman to talk about her journey and the impact of the project
Discussion points
Janet talks about herself and her journey Introduction to Tanzania Development Trust & Crowd2Map How Crowd2Map was started How Crowd2Map works. Digital champions, Weekly report cards & targets quiz, Remote mappers- Tasking managers GIS tools used and how they are used (On the field and remotely) How do you keep volunteers motivated? Discussion around some recent projects Crowd2Map has been involved with The impact it has had How people can get people involved (or become a part of the community) New projects coming underway. Partnership with NGOs outside Tanzania, East Africa towards the west? What Janet has learnt over the years in the course of her work.Important Link!
Information about Tanzania Development Trust here https://tanzdevtrust.org/
Information about Crowd2Map here https://crowd2map.org/
Join Crowd2Map Slack Channel here https://join.slack.com/t/crowd2map/shared_invite/zt-q04pcgqp-oiICJUFnp61Czn5vguV_Ig
Connect with Janet here https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetchapman/
Or by email j.chapman@tanzdevtrust.org
Invitation to 6th birthday mapathon https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crowd2map-is-6-years-old-join-us-and-help-map-to-protect-girls-from-fgm-tickets-179219308777
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Join us on LinkedIn
Mentoring and Volunteering in the geospatial industry
Everybody needs a mentor, whether you are just starting out in a new profession or you are an expert. Mentors are important not only for superior learning, but also to serve as unbiased guides in professional contexts. In this week's episode, Opeyemi speaks with geospatial talent Sharon Omoja - the Regional Coordinator for Women in Geospatial+ for Sub-Saharan Africa, - on Mentoring Volunteering and the Imposter Syndrome.
*Sharon talks about her personal experience and growth in the industry
*She training with African Drone and Data Academy
*Her role as a mentor at Women in Geospatial+
*Why mentorship is important
*The imposter syndrome and how its one of the reason some women are not showcasing their work
*Her hopes for the future of the geospatial industry in Africa and globally.
In the news:
The third cohort of the Women in Geospatial+ Mentorship Program is open for application. Interested? Register here on or before the 19th of September.
Geosakhi (Regional Group of ASIA - an online learning platform & community for geospatial women enthusiasts) along with Women in Geospatial+ organized for the first time, an all-female instructors to deliver their lectures in various trending fields of GIS. The GIS Masterclass was held from 19th August - 24th August 2021 - Link
QGIS Open Day with the theme QGIS Freestyle was held on 27th August. You can catch the recording on with this Link
Stay updated with subsequent open days here
FOSS4G conference registration is still open, you could register for the conference or grab the free workshop ticket here - Link
OSM Africa Monthly Mapathon - September Edition - Link
Follow us:
Twitter @geospatialy
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/geospatially-africa-podcast-567985218
Introductions, Our Why and Some News!
Ever wondered the thought behind this podcast, or what the host backgrounds are and what they are involved in?
Well this month's episode seeks to answer the Why behind the Geospatially Africa Podcast. Join your hosts Iniobong Benson and Opeyemi Kazeem-Jimoh as we answer questions on how we got into geospatial, what we are currently working on, and our hopes for the future of geospatial industry in Africa. Also get a front row seat as we cover all the latest events, conferences and "gist" in geospatial industry as it pertains to Africans.
Finally, we flagged off a new feature - The News Segment - where we shared some news in the geospatial industry, from events, to conferences and software updates.
Some useful links:
FOSS4G Registration - https://2021.foss4g.org/
State of the Map Africa Conference - https://2021.stateofthemap.africa/
The HOT Summit is coming it this year, read about it here. Submit proposals here
OSM Africa Monthly Mapathon - Register here
Please subscribe and follow us on twitter @geospatialy to stay up to date or send us an email gspatially@gmail.com
Listen on other platforms here
Get in touch with the hosts on Twitter
Iniobong Benson @linibenson
Opeyemi Kazeem @oluremi_opeyemi
State of the Map Africa - bringing OSM communities in Africa together.
The State of the Map Africa (SotM Africa) is a bi-annual regional conference, powered by the OSM Africa communities, that celebrates the culture of open mapping, open data, GIS and its impact across Africa. The first SotM Africa conference was hosted by the OSM community in Uganda in 2017 and in 2019 in Cote d’Ivoire. This year’s conference which will be hosted online on November 19th - November 21st, will provide a diverse and fun space for everyone to collaborate and be a part of the OpenStreetMap Africa community. We will also lay the foundation that will provide us with a solid base for the open, collaborative, and participatory community that we want to build and is needed for our movement to diversify and thrive.
I spoke to Geoffrey Kateregga about the plan for this year's conference, the preparation and what to expect.
Important links:
Sponsor the State of the Map Africa
OpenStreetMap Africa (OSM Africa community wiki page)
Don't forget to follow us on twitter @geospatialy and hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast
Email: gspatially@gmail.com
Introducing the Digital Earth Africa platform
Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa) is an operational platform, which provides analysis ready data (satellite data) to address sustainable development challenges and support decision making in the 54 countries in Africa, moving beyond the Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC). DE Africa platform can be accessed by anyone for free. Instead of download a lot of satellite images to your computer, DE Africa provides the where you can perform different analysis on the data (Landsat, Sentinel, DEM, etc) after which you can export the results to your computer.
DE Africa has created the water observation from space (WOFS) for the whole continent. Working closely with the AfriGEO community, it will be responsive to the information needs, challenges and priorities of the African continent. DE Africa will leverage and build on existing capacity to enable the use of EO to address key challenges across the continent.
DE Africa is currently developing the crop mask for the whole of Africa in support of food security and SDG 2 and the Geomad product. There are also resources that you use to learn and start using Digital Earth Africa for your projects.
Digital Earth Africa Links
DE Africa Website: https://www.digitalearthafrica.org
DE Africa Twitter here: @DEarthAfrica
DE Africa Training email: training@digitalearthafrica.org
DE Africa on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digitalearthafrica/mycompany/
Contact Dr Kenneth Mubea
Twitter @kenmubea and
LinkedIn Kenneth Mubea
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Using Geospatial Technology in Geohazard mapping saves lives
In this episode, we talked about climate change and how it contributes to geohazards around the world and how there is need for increase in the application of geospatial technology in the mapping, visualizing and identifying hazards and to contribute to early warning and risk management. The episode also focused on GRMI an initiative in Nigeria focused on reducing flood risk and contribution to flood risk management through the application of geospatial information technology.
Taiwo Ogunwumi who heads the initiative talks about how the team which is driven by passionate volunteers uses GIT in their work, the open datasets they use and the methodology they follow. The importance of volunteering our skills to help out and promote a sustainable environment is also touched upon
Volunteer at GRMI
Taiwo Ogunwumi
Twitter @tyhwoh5
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