Posts Tagged “spatial jobs”
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An Australian spatial project has received international recognition for its capability of capturing the location, distribution and physical characteristics for more than 15 million structures.
PSMA Australia’s new initiative to capture Australia’s built environment, Geoscape, was awarded with the Geospatial World Excellence Award at the Geospatial World Forum on Wednesday 25 May 2016. PSMA Australia has been receiving a lot of attention first for the opne release of their national addressing file G-NAF and now for the ambitious new dataset. Geoscape is set to provide a greater understanding of what exists at an address—buildings, features and land cover—for every address in Australia.
PSMA Australia’s Chief Executive Officer, Dan Paull accepted the award on behalf of PSMA at the award ceremony in Rotterdam, saying it was a great honour to have Geoscape recognised by this important international geospatial forum.
“This award confirms that Geoscape is a leading spatial industry development both in terms of the technology we are using and the originality of the solution we are developing,” he said.
“Our ability to combine these disruptive technologies with authoritative government data will enable the capture of key built environment data such as 3D building attributes, land cover, tree heights, roof materials, swimming pools and solar panels across Australia’s 7.6 million square kilometres.”
With support from partners such as DigitalGlobe, PSMA is leveraging leading edge technologies such as high resolution multi-spectral satellite imagery, satellite derived digital surface model, high performance cloud computing, crowdsourcing, machine learning and automated feature extraction.
Paull said the development of Geoscape is attracting incredible interest internationally: “There are many 3D datasets that cover towns or sections of cities but nothing that comes close to the scale of Geoscape in efficiently providing such data for an entire nation or continent.
“Geoscape could have an enormous impact if other nations apply similar techniques to rapidly fill their geospatial information gaps.”
“In particular, this would support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by helping to establish important economic infrastructure such as addressing and land registration systems as well as improving the delivery of humanitarian and natural disaster relief.”
PSMA Australia has recently made a Geoscape Evaluation Dataset available for download. The 300MB zip file provides a 25 square kilometre area approximately 5 kilometres south/south west of Adelaide’s central business district. This covers an area that is entirely ‘urban’ and takes in 25 suburbs as well as a reasonable proportion of buildings with solar panels and properties with swimming pools.
By Anthony Wallace
Sourced from http://www.spatialsource.com.au/international-excellence-award-for-geoscape/
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Employer demand for more staff is gaining momentum, with the number of job advertisements hitting a four-year high.
Job ads on the internet and in newspapers spiked by 2.4 per cent in May, after stalling for six months.
And for the year to May, job ads were up 9.1 per cent – the biggest rise in eight months, figures from ANZ show.
ANZ head of Australian economics Felicity Emmett says the economy is chugging along nicely and the transition to non-mining activity is gaining traction.
“The rise in job ads is consistent with the strength in business conditions, which point to ongoing solid growth in the economy,” she said.
Ms Emmett said the strong first quarter national GDP report, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week, shows that the housing and services industries are doing the heavy lifting as the mining boom fades.
“These sectors are also clearly helping to support jobs growth,” she said.
Gross domestic product rose 1.1 per cent in the March quarter and 3.1 per cent through the year, in each case the fastest for at least three years.
Ms Emmett noted that ongoing weak wage growth is likely to continue to drive solid employment gains.
“But very low growth in labour costs is feeding through to very low inflation,” she said.
“With inflation set to stay outside the RBA’s target band until at least mid-2017, we expect to see another cut in the cash rate in August to a low of 1.5 per cent.”
CommSec chief economist Craig James said the jobs market remains in solid shape and May’s lift should be positive for companies in the consumer discretionary sector.
“Still, it’s important to note that job ads aren’t as good a leading indicator on employment as they were a few years ago,” he said.
“Job seekers are increasingly going to corporate websites directly and others are using social media like LinkedIn to find positions.”
Sourced from https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/job-ads-hit-four-high-065707242.html
Since its establishment almost five years ago, the open source education and research initiative borne of multiple memoranda of understanding between the Open Source Geospatial Foundation and the International Cartographic Association, followed by the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, has transitioned into GeoForAll – the Open Source Geospatial Education and Research outreach. As of today, more than 100 laboratories and centers worldwide have formally joined the community, and GeoForAll has expanded and organized its infrastructure in response. Multiple coordinators across the globe now guide and manage regional membership activity. GeoForAll is a very open and inclusive organization. The requirement to support its mission (making contributions to free and open source software, data, education and access) is very broad, making the threshold to join relatively low,reflected in their wide and diverse membership base.
Recently Directions Magazine had the opportunity to catch up with Helena Mitasova, one of the North American regional chairs of GeoForAll, to learn how GeoForAll has been progressing towards its goals. Mitasova, a faculty member at North Carolina State University, is also a recently elected member of the OSGeo Foundation Board of Directors and one of their vice presidents.
Directions Magazine: Membership in GeoForAll growth has grown significantly in the last couple of years. Can you share some of what’s driving it?
Helena Mitasova: What you’re seeing is in part the result of consolidating parallel efforts and activities. Because of the rapidly expanding interest in open source geospatial we quickly outgrew the slow growth, top down organization outlined in the original memorandum of understanding between OSGeo and ICA. The original idea was that there might be one lead center on each continent but the interest was well beyond that. There were multiple centers of activity happening on different continents at the same time, and there were similar types of activity going on in the Education and Curriculum Committee of OSGeo itself. So in January 2016, the OSGeo Board consolidated its educational agenda under the one, single GeoForAll umbrella going forward. This structural change has been very helpful as we aim to streamline and clarify our infrastructure and relations with partners, such as ICA and ISPRS.
DM: What have been the recent priority areas of activity for GeoForAll?
HM: Having gone through this tremendous growth in membership has required us to better organize and develop our online resources, such as our wiki and website. Helping faculty and students from across our labs find each other based on their common interests is important to support a broad range of collaborative activities, and for developing grants and funding opportunities.
This also allows members to see that they do not all have to be programmers of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Many other ways to contribute exist such as writing documentation, or just being an active open source software user. We are also aiming to have a simple but robust platform for sharing the development of educational materials. We have an open repository that supports resource distribution already, but are still deciding on the best platforms for collaborative development and updating of the materials. Perhaps GitHub may be one answer. Organizations that are led by volunteers distributed around the world all face similar challenges. We have always been a “do-acracy” – if you need to get something done, you do it! So it’s a current goal that we’re working on.
DM: Share with us some of your success stories.
HM: We are very proud of having been able to involve students from across the GeoForAll network in activities such as code and community sprints to increase participation in open source software development. And we’ve had over 20 students in a given year participate in Google Summer of Code. That is a big accomplishment that is very empowering to students from around the world.
With our expanded network, we have also been able to organize and populate the academic tracks and scientific planning committees of numerous conferences, including FOSS4G global and regional conferences as well as others such as the upcoming ISPRS congress in Prague or past American Geophysical Union meetings. This works well to help spread our message. It is tremendously exciting to see the genuine global demand for all that GeoForAll is striving to do.
Another important area has been our webinar series. Before we consolidated, we used multiple different platforms based at different host institutions and we were not particularly well coordinated around the topics or the schedule. Now we’re able to be much more effective at offering these regularly and we will start to market these more. Rafael Moreno, at the FOSS4G lab at the University of Colorado – Denver, manages this effort, and the recordings are available through our YouTube channel.
DM: What are the current thoughts from GeoForAll on the topic of certification and credentials in the geospatial arena, and with FOSS in particular?
HM: We widely recognize that something is going to be needed, and is strongly desired by many in industry. Exactly what will emerge in the FOSS world is not established yet but the trend is more towards a technical-type certification (for example there is a QGIS certification effort) rather than a general geospatial one. In the short time frame, it’s more likely to be developed by business or industry as it is also a business opportunity. The demand for such a certification is so far too ambiguous for an academic institution to take it on at this point. Plus, students really need to be experienced with both FOSS and proprietary software platforms to be as knowledgeable as they can be for work and research. Both big and small companies use FOSS tools extensively but in combination with other proprietary software as well. The world doesn’t work with only one or the other; we all need both.
DM: What is next on the horizon for GeoForAll?
HM: Planning for conferences is always on-going. FOSS4G Global events rotate between venues in Europe, North America and other non-Europe/non-NA sites. So we have FOSS4G Global in August 2016 in Bonn and August 2017 will be in Boston. Now there are also regional gatherings as well. For example, the North American FOSS4G was held in Raleigh, North Carolina in early May 2016, and we had over 500people attend.
We would also like to increase our membership with universities in the United States, not because we have any quota to reach but because we know that there is interest. Though being part of GeoForAll isn’t what every geospatial academic lab must do. I am frequently asked “What can GeoForAll do for me?” or “What are the benefits of joining?” and I let them know they are asking the wrong question. The right question is, “How can I contribute?” Having that kind of attitude is how you will get the most out of being part of the GeoForAll community. Whether it has to do with teaching or research, making these connections and exchanging knowledge is how everyone benefits.
By Diana S. Sinton
Sourced from http://www.directionsmag.com/entry/geoforall-grows-its-grass-roots/469520
Whether you are an employer, employee or jobs seeker, read on for some tips of how to motivate yourself and others…
“When you’re trying to motivate your staff, often the best way is to give them something that they can relate to, laugh about, or appeal directly to their feelings with a specific story. Sometimes fact, sometimes fiction, stories encourage your staff to think, and to reflect on the lessons. This is a much greater force than simply telling someone to work harder. If you really want to influence your staffs behavior you need to convince them that the goals are worth reaching…
There are two main types of motivational stories for getting your employees fired up. The first is taking examples from real life, where people have overcome massive challenges and risen to success. By showing them that people in the same position have overcome whatever problems they had and reach their goal, you’re demonstrating it can be done. Giving them both an idol to look up to and encouraging them to strive ahead. As follows are real life examples you can use to motivate your employees towards success:
Michael Jordan
One of his main principles is that there’s no excuse for not trying. The first setback came when he didn’t make the varsity basketball team in sophomore year, because he was only 5’9” and his taller classmate Leroy Smith had taken the last spot on the team. Vowing to himself never to be in the same position again, he made a habit to practice daily – without fail. Hitting a growth spurt and reaching 6’3” he made the team the following year and never looked back. He went on to win two gold medals in the Olympics, and winning the NBA’s most valuable player 5 times in his career, it was his determination and practice that gave him the greatest success.
Derek Redmond
A massive commitment to finish what you start. In the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, his dreams as a sprinter were crushed as he faced a hamstring injury that took him out of the race. Instead of giving up and admitting defeat, giving over to the pain and submitting like many others would have done in that position – he was determined to cross the finish line. Hobbling towards the end of the race he almost is overcome by the pain his dad bursts onto the track and helps him to make it over the finish line. Sometimes you need to support your staff, and other times they need to do whatever it takes to get it done…
Oprah Winfrey
A household name today, but a woman with a troubled past. From being sexually abused at age 9, to living on the streets at 13, and losing her first baby at 14, she has overcome all of her troubled past to be a role model for an entire generation. Determined to succeed despite her past she became the first black woman on national television and a millionaire at the age of 32. She’s consistently voted one of the most influential people by Time, and is considered one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. The lesson is that no matter where your origins are, it’s up to you to decide what you will make of your life. Sitting down and wallowing in your own self pity means you will achieve nothing in your life. The battle isn’t over until you say it is.
Taking a step away from reality there are many motivational fables that serve an ultimate goal of delivering a lesson, which is the second type of motivational story you can share with employees. Your objective is to get your staff thinking, and reflecting on their own behaviors and actions. If you are really listening to your staff and know what’s troubling them, the right use of a motivational story can empower them to make their own decisions.
Outlook Makes All the Difference
Many years ago two salesmen were to Africa by a British shoe manufacturer. The goal of their trip was to investigate this new market, and to report their findings back to headquarters on the potential of the market.
- The first salesman came back with a rather dismal report, “There’s no potential at all here, because nobody wears shoes.”
- The second salesman came back with a rather different reply, “There’s massive potential in Africa, because nobody wears shoes.”
When telling this story put your inflection on the “nobody” as it helps to clarify that in a single situation, there are often many ways to look at the outcome.
It’s your choice as to how you interpret any situation, whether you’re looking at it positively with optimism, or as a challenge full of negativity. For helping your sales team to develop you have to check out this course, it’s packed with strategies to make them even more effective.
The Power of Positivity
There was a gardener who was running his family business, that had been passed down from his grandfather to his father and now to him. The staff were happy, and they had more than enough customers, and the team and business were both very successful. For as long as anyone could even remember, the current owner and his ancestors before him were always happy, positive and optimistic. Generally, people assumed that was because they were all running a very successful business.
Testament to this, there was a tradition of all the owners to wear a big lapel badge saying “Business is Great!” Generally, it was great, but there were tough times just like all businesses. The key was that no matter the success of the gardening business, the owners attitude was always the same.
The first time anyone saw the owner and the badge, they would invariably ask “What’s so great about your business?”, or make their own comments that their own companies were suffering, and they were miserable in their personal lives because of how stressed they were. What the badge was great for was starting a conversation, where the owner could then talk about all of the positive parts of the business.
- how much he loved meeting and talking with new people each day
- how rewarding it was as he helps staff rise to meet new challenges and experiences
- being able to laugh and relax in a work environment where all the team get along
- how much he loves helping people with the actual gardening
- the feeling of satisfaction from finishing a job to the best of his ability
- the new challenges that force you to learn something new everyday
- the thought that everyone doing business is blessed, because of the opportunity that comes with being in a civilized country, where there are no real worries.
The list goes on and on. No matter how bad a mood the customer was in before walking in the store, they would leave feeling an awful lot happier just from a couple of minutes talking to the owner and being a part of the infectious positivity and enthusiasm. Asked about the key to his businesses success, and whether the badge or the attitude came first in a quiet moment the owner confides “The badge was first. The great business came after.”
The goal of this story is to encourage a positive attitude and behavior, no matter what is happening with the business or personally. Being part of a successful team is the end result, your attitude is what comes first.
Get in the Frontline Yourself
Close to a battlefield over 200 years ago a rider passes a group of exhausted soldiers who were digging themselves into an important defensive position. Noticing their section leader was mounted as well, and shouting orders at the men to work faster, dig deeper and threatening to whip anyone that didn’t complete their work within the hour.
Asked by the stranger, “If this is so important why are you not helping?” The section leader advised that he is in charge, and the men must do as he says. The section leaders exact comments where, “You should help them yourself if you feel so strongly about it.”
Much to the surprise of the section leader the stranger dismounted, and worked in the trenches, side by side with the men until the job was finished. Once the work was done he congratulated the men, and approached the puzzled section leader.
“Next time your rank prevents you from supporting your men, you are to notify top command and I will provide a more permanent solution,” said the stranger, who was now up close and easily recognizable as General Washington.
This lesson is a fantastic one for supervisors and leaders that you are coaching to help them – help their own teams. The ultimate goal is to realize that you’re only a true leader if you’re willing to do the work of your team without complaint, when they need you most. This is what makes you a truly motivational leader…
Using these six stories as a base for motivation, you have an arsenal of themes and topics that you can use to raise your employees to additional success. The key in all of them is to be an effective communicator…
Rewarding your teams with bonuses or overtime only ever gets you so far, once you become a storyteller and are able to get them believing in what they are working on – that’s when you truly have a motivated team.”
By Travis Benett
Sourced from https://blog.udemy.com/motivational-stories-for-employees/
Job platform Workible has announced its partnership with WiC Group to expand its job reach to regional centres around Australia. Both companies have worked together to roll out 45 regional job sites to address the lack of access country residence have to local jobs.
“Regional Australia has certainly drawn the short straw when it comes to being looked after by job providers,” said Tim O’Brien, WiC Group founder.
For many residents in regional Australia poor access to jobs means they often leave their hometown and head to the cities in search of work.
The WiC Group, founded in 2011, has launched job websites and focus groups to strengthen local employment networks in regional Queensland. The partnership with Workible means both companies can leverage each other’s resources and give regional residents access to more job sites, helping both local employers and local job seekers connect.
“We’re aiming to remedy that with sites that specifically help locals connect with each other, especially when distance can be an issue,” said O’Brien.
Each of the 45 sites that both WiC Group and Workible have created are in various stages of roll out and include sites like JobsInTheIllawarra.com.au and remote areas like the Pilbara Riverina in Western Australia. The sites will cover all work types, from casual to seasonal jobs, and permanent full time work in all industry sectors.
The growth of Workible as a job tech provider has seen the company expand its software all over Australia and is now the largest connected network of job sites in the country.
“That means that anyone, anywhere can post a job to any platform in the Workible network and it will appear on the sites that are most pertinent to it,” said Fiona Anson, cofounder of Workible.
Workible’s mobile-first technology means job seekers have instant access and communication with employers when they’re not in reach of a computer. Anson says having access to everything via mobile devices is essential, especially for people in rural and regional areas.
“We’ve seen national clients in Melbourne post a job for a Newcastle-based role that appears on JobsInTheHunter, the Retail Network, Charlestown Square’s Job Network and Hunter TAFE’s job site as well as WorkibleJobs our own jobs marketplace,” said Anson. “The connectedness of our platforms means that jobs go the places where the right people will see them.”
Workible has also recently announced the launch of a rural specific job site called FarmJobs.com.au. The site lists jobs from the regional networks that apply to farm work, along with jobs specifically posted through the Workible site.
Recently the startup sector has seen regional areas begin to grow their tech communities to spur greater job growth and support local industries. In late April the Bega Valley launched a Regional Innovation Week as the first step in building the communities tech sector. The innovation week aimed to support local tech startups that may very well see the community create 1,000 jobs by 2030.
Australia has also seen regional innovation hubs launch in areas like Ipswich to connect entrepreneurs with tools and mentoring services to build up startup communities in regional areas.
With State and Federal governments mostly focused on the major cities, the launch of these initiatives have come for the most part through the work of the local communities themselves.
As technology continues to diversify so do regional communities in Australia. In an effort include these communities in the technology and innovation boom startup hubs and new job sites provide further support to regional areas and recognise the opportunity to drive innovation and build local communities.
Image: Fiona Anson and Ali Baker
24 May 2016. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) and the Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will further the missions of both organizations by collaborating as partners in the development and conduct of outreach and education program activities to advance standards-based, interoperable modelling approaches to address the needs of each organization’s membership.
Further, SIBA will assist with local promotion and education regarding OGC standards in the Asia Pacific region, including advocating the use of OGC standards by the Australian and New Zealand governments.
The collaboration will build upon the significant and successful relationship seen in the mid 2000s between OGC and SIBA’s previous incarnation, ASIBA.
“OGC’s success in advancing our mission is greatly enhanced through the many alliances and partnerships we have forged with leading standards organizations and associations worldwide,” said Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of OGC. “We are excited about our alliance with Spatial Industries Business Association, which will enable OGC to further extend our reach and impact in Australia and New Zealand while providing SIBA an international platform for articulating and advancing its industry association mission.”
“SIBA is pleased to be working together with the OGC to contribute to supporting and unifying the industry on an international platform where there is common ground and cause to do so,” said Kellee Ireland, Executive Director of SIBA. “We are excited to be working with the OGC to establish broader international relationships and raise awareness and understanding of international standards throughout the Asia Pacific region.”
About SIBA
SIBA is the leading association representing the Spatial Industry in Australia and New Zealand. SIBA focuses on four core areas: networking, growth, support and influence at a government level. SIBA is a not-for-profit organization and seeks to inform, assist, and grow private enterprise within the spatial industry. Visit the SIBA website at www.siba.com.au.
About the OGC
The OGC is an international consortium of more than 515 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org.
From http://www.directionsmag.com/pressreleases/ogc-and-siba-sign-memorandum-of-understanding/469190
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A new tool from APSEA award winning team at NGIS have released a first of its kind tool to allow Australians to visualise how sea level rise driven by climate change will impact their areas.
A BETA version of the Coastal Risk Australia interactive webmap has been made openly available and charts the majority of Australia’s enormous coastline to show how sea level rise could impact Australia under a number of different climate scenarios. Coastal Risk Australia incorporates 3D LiDAR, Google Engine and local tidal data to accurately map how rising sea levels could encroach on cities, towns and beaches under three scientific scenarios.
The interactive tool clearly shows that iconic beaches like the Gold Coast and famous coastal spots such as Cairns in Queensland and Queenscliff in Victoria will be among the most vulnerable places to rising sea levels, and will help individuals, communities and all levels of government prepare in the decades to come.
The map has highlighted that if waters around Australia rise by 0.74 metres by the end of this century, some of the most vulnerable sites around Australia will include:
- Queensland: The Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Port Douglas
- Victoria: Brighton Beach, St Kilda Beach, Queenscliff
- New South Wales: Narrabeen, Byron Bay
- South Australia: Port Adelaide, Hindmarsh Island
- Western Australia: Cottesloe Beach, Mandura
- Northern Territory: Kakadu National Park
The data was captured using airborne LiDAR technology to create detailed digital elevation models (DEM), which are then combined with ‘bucket-fill’ inundation modelling to create the map-based visualisations.
The calculated inundation is based on high tide, the Australian Height Datum and various sea level scenarios based on findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, as shown in the below calculation.
Inundation = Sea Level Rise Scenarios (Low, Medium and High) + High Tide + Water-Land (MSL-AHD) Offset
The underlying DEMs have been mapped in great detail using airborne LiDAR at a resolution of 5 metres along Australia’s coast.
NGIS Australia Principal Consultant Nathan Eaton said it was difficult for people to appreciate what rising sea levels in decades to come could mean for their homes, community and the places they love.
“Maps are a universal language that everyone can understand. This website allows every Australian to visualise our climate change future with pinpoint accuracy, and gain a better understanding of how rising sea levels will affect our coastline, neighbourhoods and favourite places.”
NGIS Australia built the website based on an earlier model used to map sea-level rise in the Pacific Islands.
“Our main goal is to raise awareness of how sea-level rise will affect the places we live, but this will also help all Australians prepare for change, from all levels of government, in policy, conservation and community engagement.”
Across the globe, sea levels have risen an average of 17cm over the course of the 20th century and the average sea level rise around Australia has been at a similar level. Scientists are forecasting sea levels will rise between 0.4–1.1m over the remainder of this century depending on how rapidly the world reduces emissions of greenhouse gases. More than 80 percent of Australians live near the coast and a Climate Council report has already warned that future sea level rises could put more than $200 billion of infrastructure at risk.
By Anthony Wallace http://www.spatialsource.com.au/ngis-highlight-sea-level-rise-risk-sites-across-australia/