Women and GIS Webinar
Creating Awareness for Geo-Business in Africa and Building the African Women in GIS Community.
My Story
Before University
My first inspiration came from my brother’s High school geography textbook and exam questions when I was in primary school. Later, I became more interested in the geography aspect of social studies in junior high .
However, my decision to offer geography in high school was not very welcoming to my mum who wanted me to offer elective science.
Although I wanted to offer science with geography , that option was not available at the school so I had to choose between the two and I chose geography.
University
After High School, my passion for geography led me to further and graduate with a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Geography and Resource Development with Psychology at the University of Ghana. I found out about Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing during my 3rd year as I was researching about the elective courses . I decided to offer the course despite warnings a friend gave me about the lecturer and the grades.
In my last year, I took up adding GIS and Remote Sensing to my undergraduate research and that added to my admiration for the field. My research was titled," Urban Sprawl and Water Supply in Urban Accra"
To fuel this passion and curiosity about GIS, I took up an internship opportunity at a GIS and software company - Henson Geodata Technologies (HGT) . There, I saw the application of GIS in software creation and that changed my views about Geography. I knew then that I had finally found my ideal career choice,"Geography with a whole lot of Technology".
After University
Creating Awareness for Geo-Business in Africa
Application of GIS in the Food and Beverages Industry
A. Before starting any Geo-business analytic work, the data has to be collected on the market niche. After, the company decides how they would divide their market area.
B. After, the data collected can be visualized to view the hot spots of the customers. Visualization could be based on the volume of products the customers buy or the number of customers concentrated at certain locations.
This can help provide insights as to where more deliveries and sales will be needed by the sales team and how to divide the territories and routes.
C. The next step for the company could be to create efficient delivery territories and routes. These routes will help get the products to the customers on time. Other benefits in relation to swift delivery could be easy tracking of daily , weekly and monthly sales as well as preventing territory disputes.
A software could be designed with a map for the delivery team. This could include traffic details and rerouting functionalities to aid drivers use the best and fastest routes to reach customers on time. Cost of operations could be reduced after some period of application. However, the initial project phase for data collection would be costly.
Remember, GIS can be integrated into any business sector as long as it is related to
- LOCATION.
Building the African Women in GIS Community
African Women in GIS (AWiGIS) was officially Co-Founded in October , 2019. The co-founders are Chidimma Umeogu (Nigeria) and Cyhana Lena Williams (Ghana).
The community was formed from merging the independent groups made by the co-founders - Women in GIS - Nigeria and Women in GIS - Ghana. Currently, the community has about 180 members in total.
The Problem
The GIS field and awareness level in Africa is quite low. In the schools, GIS related courses register a low number of women as compared to the men. This is usually because of the low level of awareness and the lack of knowledge of the vast applications and growing needs for this technology.
Also, the field is not yet applied in several sectors in Africa. This limits the demand for GIS personnel. Therefore, jobs in the GIS fields are difficult to come by after graduating from school. This forces some graduates to change their career choices despite their GIS interests. Some also do not have fellow GIS peers to learn, network, get job opportunities nor gain career guidance and exposure.
About AWiGIS
These reasons among others was what motivated the creation of the African Women in GIS community. We aim to create a safe haven community that gives African women the platform to meet other African Women in the geospatial industry. They also get to learn from each other, network, gain mentors, get job post opportunities as well as GIS career advice. This community welcomes African women and diaspora women who work, study or are enthusiastic about the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and its related fields.
Our Activities
Our membership is restricted to only women however, all our webinars, events and most of our activities are made public. Here are some events and activities we have had so far:
- International Women's Day Webinar - Speakers included Dr. Dawn Wright ( ESRI ) and Dr. Catherine Nakalembe ( NASA Harvest ).
- Afrisnet (Africa STEM Network )Post Graduate Degree Research Webinar - Speakers included Dr. Gabriel Gihana (Founder of Afrisnet) and Dr. Daniel Schwab (Chair of Education Committee)
- Python Coding Class - Ongoing (Led by Linda Ochwada)
Also, these are a few plans we have for the near future:
- Mentorship
- LinkedIn Personal Branding Series
- GIS and Cloud Computing Webinar
- IBISA Volunteer Project
- AWiGIS Website Launch
- And more...
Post Covid-19, we aim to create more awareness of GIS by providing the members support to have GIS outreach programmes to schools and other places. There, they can teach, show videos and projects of the numerous applications of GIS and the vast career opportunities to children, students and companies.
Conclusion
Due to the use of GIS in the visualization of the COVID-19 , the awareness level of GIS has increased a bit. Therefore, now is the time for African Women in GIS to be more active and show the world - especially Africa the numerous applications for GIS. This can create more job opportunities for GIS graduates and African Women in GIS.
We are open to fellow African women in Africa or the Diaspora who wish to join our Slack and WhatsApp groups.
- Medaase - Thank you.