GeoGeek Rapidfire – Andres Abeyta

A {Andres}: Coffee in AM.  Tea in PM.  Never drank alcohol.

A {Andres}: ArcGIS. Drank the kool-aid early.  Taught and used Esri stuff to a lot of peeps.

A {Andres}: I’ve had both.  Both worked well.  I could hear people on the other end and look up stuff.

A {Andres}: EsriUC.  Been to 23 straight UCs in San Diego since I live here.  But am really open to FOSS and its growing potential.

Q {Glenn}: Recommended good read to understand geography?
A { Andres }: Geography, history, and politics are always mixed together if you look at how the world has evolved.  I really recommend ‘Undaunted Courage’ by Stephen Ambrose.  It’s the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition and teaches you a lot about the exploration of the West enroute to becoming the United States.  Fascinating read!

Q {Glenn}: Is there a human resource problem in the geospatial industry?
A { Andres }: Absolutely.  Actually this problem exists in all tech sectors.  It’s called the ‘Skills Gap’.  Higher-ed is good at teaching general subjects that stand the test of time.  But they are not that good at keeping pace with lots of quickly evolving tech:  digital marketing, coding, cloud architecture, mobile development, and GIS solutions.  And now you have blends of data science, machine learning, AI, and big data that all cross over to GIS.  The result is that hiring managers like me are presented with recent graduates that have basically learned what I learned 25 years ago:  gis data constructs, cartography, spatial analysis, remote sensing.  A small percentage of the GIS education out there is really applied and can show that it’s keeping up with evolving trends.  I’m passionate about this problem and is why I’ve been working with talented people to author a new kind of geospatial education platform.  Check out some of these classes that address this need:  https://platform.bootcampgis.com/courses

Q {Glenn}: any advice for GeoGeeks that are thinking of launching a startup venture?
A { Andres }: I like this question.  Largely because I have lived it and authored a course called ‘Turn your idea into a successful startup’.  I ran my own business for 20 years which gave me one perspective.  And then I went through 3 startup incubators in San Diego, San Francisco, and New York.  These retooled my thinking with a fresh look at startup principles.  For the sake of brevity, I will offer 3 points of advice which are all about approach and less about tech.

     1. The right mentality.  I read an article that said the #1 attribute of successful entrepreneurs was ‘grit’.  Can you tough out the ups and downs?  Can you persevere over a longer timeframe to get a working product?  Do you mind working at nights when your 9 to 5 friends are out at happy hour?  When you have ambition and grit, then the startup ecosystem is extremely exciting and you meet people that do innovative things.

     2. Use the Agile Process.  There is a book by Eric Ries that you should read for more enlightenment.  The essence is to get a minimum viable product as fast as possible.  Do many experiments with your development and marketing.  When you do this, you fail fast and retool your thinking.  Break down your goal of the week rather than some far off dream product that may take years to complete.

     3. Find your tribe.  Don’t work in a vacuum keeping your idea a secret.  Best to network with people and get advice.  Talk to people in your industry, apply to an incubator, and go to a startup gathering to learn from others.  This will allow you to find advisors, investors, and users.  The more input the better.

Q {Glenn}: Scenario, I’m a College student wanting a career in “GIS” what words of wisdom can you give me?
A { Andres }: I have been giving advice to student groups in Zoom presentations this last year.  You can even watch a recorded webinar here:  https://bootcampgis.easywebinar.live/event-registration-15

But the crux of this talk is to think about ‘Spotifying’ your GIS education.  In tech, everything is evolving quickly.  So it doesn’t matter if you just completed your degree.  You need to keep learning: how to solve new problems, what are the latest tools, and who I should follow as a new thought leader.  We get our music, food, and rides in realtime.  Education should be no different.  If you show your employer that you are paying attention to the industry and thinking about how tech can solve problems, you will elevate yourself above your young colleagues.

Q {Glenn}: What do you think of the current business climate and what are the opportunities?
A { Andres }: I’ve been one of those who have been thinking for a while that our industry would plateau and there would be a decreasing need in talent and companies in a saturated market.  But it just hasn’t happened. The GIS industry continues to grow for a number of reasons:  1) More data collection sources with UAVs and Mobile Apps, 2) Ease of cloud data distribution, 3) Data explosion requiring analysis and machine learning logic, and 4) More ways to learn GIS.  The opportunities clearly lie in two areas.  The ‘ologist’ can more easily pick up GIS as a tool and quickly implement in their vertical for mass distribution of their geographic data.  The GIS professional that marries GIS with a stronger IT background can quickly become a lead solution admin or architect.

To take advantage of geospatial industry growth, there is an area I care a lot about.  It centers on the fact that all tech verticals including GIS suffer from lack of diversity.  Women and minorities are very tough to find in the lead technical roles that are instrumental in architecting and running GIS departments everywhere.  This compelled me to do a survey of 1000 LinkedIn profiles where the roles were GIS manager, gis developer, gis architect, and gis admin.  I found that 36% were female while 10% were people of color.  This begs for a proactive approach to promote marginalized communities into GIS careers.  We have the opportunity to bring diversity into the GIS field but it needs to start at the high school level.  Too many of us wind up with a career in GIS by accident because few counselors and teachers are telling them about our wonderful industry.  So a push you can help me with is to help bring awareness to high school educators.

Q {Glenn}: Can you share a snippet of what’s exciting and/or on the horizon for you & or your company?
A { Andres }: I have researched the EdTech sector intensively and see a projected growth to a $1T industry in the next few years.  This was already a trend and when the pandemic happened, it added rocket fuel to content developers everywhere.  We took the lead in GIS education by doing a survey of the skills gap.   We tallied all the topics taught at 120 GIS programs.  Then we tallied all of the skills requested in 300 GIS job announcements.  The difference in the lists was very easy to see.  The GIS Industry has really followed the growth in cloud, mobile, and data science and is asking for these skills which the majority of the college programs are not offering.  So we have an active search for the best geospatial projects that demonstrate how GIS helps solve problems.  Our model is to find the best thought leaders that can show you how to replicate their projects.  So you get depth rather than breadth in a variety of GIS topics which allow you to get an applied GIS Certificate.  It’s exciting for me to think, ‘I want a class on wildfire GIS, or COVID dashboard GIS, or ocean plastic GIS.  Then make the class happen.  Our team is gratified when we see a student make the choice in project-based classes versus a standard Intro to GIS.  This really must be a national interest.  I want to help people advance quicker in their geospatial skills, so they are prepared to do analysis and communication with all of the World’s pressing issues.

About Andres Abeyta