How to increase your competitiveness in the job market
20th November was the 25th Geographic Information System Day (GIS Day). The aim of the event was to recognise the outstanding performance of the practitioners and to share the best practice of GIS with the public, so that more people can understand the potential of this innovative technology and its ability to change the world. Since its inception in 1999, it has been held every year on the third Wednesday of November.
This year's theme of “Mapping Minds, Shaping the World”, highlights the power of GIS and geospatial data to help us identify hidden trends, strike a balance between environmental conservation and economic growth, and make smarter decisions in urban planning and management.
This year, the event was celebrated in about 100 locations around the world, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Madagascar, the Middle East, South America and Eastern Europe, in addition to Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia.
Organised by universities, public and private organisations, the event consisted of a wide range of activities, including case studies, on-site demonstrations, workshops, quizzes, and more, for the general public and for young people. For example, in Saint Lucia, an island nation in the Caribbean with a population of less than 200,000, the national spatial data infrastructure team, composed of government and non-government agencies, visited secondary schools to introduce the career prospects of the GIS industry to young people. The event in India was to demonstrate the application of GIS in various fields of natural sciences to students in international schools. Students from a public university in Osaka, Japan, gave a variety of lectures to the public on how GIS can cope with the threat of flooding and the heat island effect.
From low-altitude economy to logistics, urban development to disaster prevention, the importance of geospatial data has long been self-evident. In order to increase their competitiveness in the workplace, many people have begun gaining more knowledge in this field.
In Hong Kong, in addition to universities and post-secondary institutions, the public can enhance their understanding of the application of geographic information by participating in the activities of the GIS Academy I founded in 2022, or the government's Geospatial Laboratory (GeoLab). Today, participating in international free online courses is another option.
The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), an online learning platform, has recently launched a course called Going Places with Spatial Analysis, which is suitable for people who have some understanding of data analysis but do not need to be familiar with GIS software. The course introduces you to the unique capabilities of spatial data analysis and the important role it plays in different businesses and decision-making, and provides free access to ArcGIS Online, a professional GIS software. The course is six weeks long, with an expected 2-3 hours of study per week, and students can study at their own time and pace and be awarded a certificate for those completing the course. The course will commence by the end of January 2025 and the language of instruction will be English.
In addition to job hunting, grasping powerful analytical tools such as GIS can help improve critical thinking, which is even more important in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).
*For more details, please visit the following link:
https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/57660f19bb54adb30c9454b0/going-places-with-spatial-analysis/
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