Would You Support a National Geospatial Student Union

Last September we were one of several sponsors who helped make the GoGeomatics Back to School Socials (which took place in numerous cities from coast to coast including Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Niagara, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver) a success.

GoGeomatics Managing Director, Jonathan Murphy had his team of group leaders ask attendees to participate in a career survey. One of the questions on the survey was “Would they support a Canadian National Geospatial Student Union if it provided opportunities such as co-operatives, job opportunities or internship positions?” (See actual questions asked here). 83% of the 200 participants responded that, they would support a Canadian National Geospatial Student Union.

Mr. Murphy told us that he added this question to his country wide survey because he feels that Canada does not have a credible organization that represents the interests of student and young professionals within the geomatics sector.

When he was a student, he noticed there was a significant gap in the geospatial community, just like there is now even though there are several groups and associations that argue that they do represent Canadian geomatics students. However when you examine membership and the boards of these organizations you notice that they include members further on in there careers with different agendas.

Not only has GoGeomatics discovered that there is over whelming interest from students and young professionals to form a union that could unite students all across Canada but they have also found out that key members of industry and government, are willing to support such a group.

GoGeomatics knows that they can accomplish such a task on their own,so are seeking volunteers in the geospatial community that are interested in joining a steering committee to further explore creating such a student union. They are looking for a balanced group of people, not just students.

If you are interested in joining the steering committee or finding out what GoGeomatics thinks a Canadian National Geospatial Student Union would do the Canadian geomatics sector, then check out Mr.Murphy’s latest edition to the GoGeomatics Magazine for details.

January 7, 2015 | canadiangis2

Canadian GIS Education

Would You Support a National Geospatial Student Union

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