Young minds learn about a career in Geoinfomatics
Learners visiting the 2018 West Rand Career Exhibition got some insight into Geoinformatics.
Learners visiting the 2018 West Rand Career Exhibition got some insight into Geoinformatics when Kaylin Barber told them what it entails.
Kaylin, who holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Geoinformatics, said her job simplifies ways of getting information to find out which areas displayed on the maps in parts of South Africa need amenities. She studied at the University of Pretoria, and is currently a Geo-Information Systems (GIS) practitioner at the Geo-Information Society of South Africa (GISSA).
Wikipedia defines ‘geoinformatics’ as the science and the technology which develops and uses information science infrastructure to address the problems of geography, cartography, geosciences and related branches of science and engineering.
While speaking to the Herald about her career, the 25-year-old woman said: “There are different ways to get into the profession – you can go to a university of technology, you can do a Diploma or you can simply do a degree.”
She explained how Geo-Information Systems work: “We take whatever kind of data and build an intelligent map for it. What this means is that we build more information on the data. We develop maps to showcase the information. For example, if we are looking at the wards in Gauteng and we want to know where the most people live, we take the counts for all the wards from the centre’s data and style it in a specific category range from highest to lowest. We use specific colours for each of these different numbers,” she said.
She said some of the maps are used to help provide services that may be needed in some parts of the country.
She said this kind of information that may be used by agencies when conducting research about infrastructural facilities in a specific area.
Kaylin said that those who are interested in the field need to do mathematics and science at school. “Additional subjects that are very good to have are Mathematics paper 3, and AP Mathematics, because there is a lot of calculus and programming involved in geoinformatics. Take these subjects at school will help you a lot when you get to the university.”
She added that anyone who is interested in this industry needs to have a creative mind, as the systems use a lot of design.
“Creativity is important, because if you want to display something nicely, there is a whole science behind colours, and behind how people visualise things. It’s the same for people who do graphic design – there is a similar personality trait that we share. I also think having an analytical mind will help, because when you have this information, you need to find a way of presenting it to your audience intelligently,” she said.
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