Emerging Spatial Professionals- Lightning Talk Competition 2022

The Auckland Emerging Spatial Professionals Group have again given me the privilege of being one of the judges for the Lightning Talk competition at the upcoming Mini-Conference being held in Auckland on April 2 2022. Register for the event here:

It is the fifth year that I've been invited to do this and it is a highlight of my year: there are so many fascinating short talks that these graduates and students have given. The breadth of topics is as wide as the use of GIS: everything from climate change, monitoring lightning strikes, how maps can tell lies, to disaster management, use of GIS by Iwi Maori, to volunteer service overseas through to experiences undertaking GIS degrees.

I'd like to encourage any emerging spatial professionals that will be attending the event to consider doing a lightning talk, it is a great way to practice making these types of presentation, which is often an important skill to have as your career develops. It is also a great way to meet people in the audience that share your interests.

Some features of this competition:

• Every speaker gets a prize! The 1st place prize is a training credit for a 2 day classroom based training course kindly sponsored by Eagle Technology Group plus a signed copy of the amazing NZ Atlas 'We Are Here'.
• Your talk will only be 5 minutes long (easy to prepare! over in a flash!)
• Anything related to GIS or mapping is acceptable as a topic: it can be a project or assignment or thesis that you have worked on, or just a presentation about a topic that interests you
• The audience at the symposium will primarily be your peers: this might make doing this less daunting: its a friendly and supportive audience, even if public speaking is something that you need practice at.
• Open to students and anyone in their first few years after graduating
• Talks should not focus on products or services: sales pitches or fanboy/fangirl talks about specific software/data products/service offerings are to be avoided in line with the ESP Group's vendor neutral stance. Talks should be about the geography or the maps or the science: talks should not focus specifically on tools. Note: while the sponsorship is being provided by a vendor that will have no bearing on the judging: in previous years winners and runners up have presented talks that touched on the use of a wide variety of technology options.
• To propose a talk please follow the registration process, after you have registered you will receive an email with details about how to propose a talk. Register for the Symposium here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeX24nJktRCf8rwZ95u8AJbKr0233RWEwq9Njh94Es8LX3sUQ/viewform

To give you some idea of the topics that people have spoken about in the past, here is a list of the speakers and topics from previous conferences:

Auckland 2019

• To'oa Faleaupu Brown- GIS Specialist at Skyeye Pacific. Title : Post Disaster Recovery : Using GIS tools to assess the Apia Water Catchments Post Tropical Cyclone Gita.
• Luke Sussex- Student at Auckland University of Technology - Postgraduate Diploma - Geospatial Science: Quieter or faster? Preference based cycle routing
• Baily Lelieveld- GIS Consultant at Eagle Technology: Experiences on the GALoP-X Programme
• Soundararajan Kanthasamy Arumugam - Master of Applied Professional Studies- Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology: Glimpses of my Everlasting journey with Geospatial Technology
• Petra Sullivan- Service Support Agent- Ravensdown: “Developing a GIS perspective”
• Tim Robinson-?Graduate Intern at Auckland Transport: Experiences in the Auckland Transport Graduate Programme
• Haochun Guo- Geospatial Science Student at Auckland University of Technology: Light Data to understand Urbanization Dynamics
• Vidhya Mithun: Title: Flood Risk Assessment of Piha?
• Joseph Arogya 3 GIS Technology Advancements in the Last 5 Years
• Xingwei He?-?Postgraduate student at Auckland University of Technology, majoring in Geospatial Science: Object detecting model for identifying marine litters in mangrove swamp

Auckland 2018

• Will Marson, University of Auckland: Delineation of Valley Bottom Margins in the Waipa Catchment
• Nicole Wheeler, University of Auckland: Structure from motion
• Andrew Hodren, Geotechnics Ltd: Indoor Positioning Systems
• Jason Tam, University of Auckland: Possibilities in GIS with Data Science
• Rachel Joseph, Tauranga City Council: Social impact assessment of Gambling within Tauranga City
• Paola Albarracin: The differences between GIS in Colombia and New Zealand
• Sarah Allerton, Eagle Technology: GIS at uni vs GIS in the real world
• Karen Diaz Velandia, Jasol NZ Ltd: Georeference Evolution: Zenus a study case in Colombia
• Nadine Tupp, AUT: Incorporating GIS and Remote Sensing into developing a socioecological approach to effective and socially-just conservation in Africa
• Duncan Nichol, University of Otago: Biogeography: Species Distributions
• Prajakta Niphadkar, University of Auckland- how high-resolution regional climate and ocean models could benefit coastal inundation modelling using GIS

Taupo 2017

• Cam Asher: Use of drones for mapping in volcanology for GeoNet
• Melanie Van Enter: Climate Change & Archey’s Frog- spatial analysis
• Callum Smith: Internship at Aurecon
• Ella Mroczek: Quasi-geoids and vertical datums
• Rory McPherson: Tapping into GIS for water utilities
• Naomi Begg: Volunteer mapping in Ghana
• Campbell Fleury: GIS Service Design
• Danielle Spain: Experiences as an Eagle Intern
• Jeremy Long: How maps tell lies; Silverstream Flood Maps
• Lucas Mostyn: Location data collection, 3D printing and low level electronics.
• Lauren McArtney: Geospatial Capability Committee and NZ FutureInTech
• Sam Keast: GIS at MSD
• Renee Schicker: GIS in a capital project: SH1 Cambridge to Piarere (C2P) Project
• Ed Cook: Experience at the NZSEA Awards
• Nick Draguno: Field collection considerations
• Sarah Haxell: Future Proofing Auckland City using GIS : understanding flood vulnerability
• Doug Callaway: Why I Became A Data Scientist (and what our communities can learn from each other)

Turangi 2016

• Blair McCullough: Using in vehicle GPS to create a spead surface for the national state highway network
• Richard Law: Lightning lightning Talk
• Jeremy Long: RNZAF Geospatial Intelligence Support to Cyclone Relief
• Wendy Callaway: MGIS Programme
• Lucas Mostyn: Tipping Tragedy -Live data capture of fly tipping
• Julia King: Reflections on the MGIS year
• Taryn Sabine-Shaw: Clash detection and utilities modelling
• Markus Heke: SCGIS – Society for Conservation GIS & Maori Mapping perspectives
• Josie Hawkey: Location Intelligence- Geospatial Intelligence NZ - a brief overview
• Rosie Tate: Using photogrammetry to create DEMs and Dods
• Heather Braybrook: Water Use Data
• Keeley Clayton: Access to Greenspace in Hamilton
• Nick Waring: Urban Heat - Detecting Urban Heat in New York City
• Rachel Ryan: Cyclone Winston - Providing geospatial support for the releif effort.
• Hannah Mountfort: Understanding Network Performance and Demand - The work of a transportation Analyst
• Lauren McArtney: My Experience at the ESRI UC in San Diego
• Sam Keast: A day in the life of an MBIE Geospatial Advisor