 Hi, here's InterGioTV. My name is Ruth. I'm your host for today. I'm really glad to talk today about a really important topic with diversity, equity, and inclusion. My guest today is Albert Momo and Albert. He is chair of World Geospatial Industry Council Committee for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and his primary role. He also works as a vice president and executive director for Triple. So, hi and welcome to InterGioTV, Albert. Thank you. Thank you for having me, and it's a pleasure to talk to you. So, today's focus is on your work of the committee because, yeah, just shortly, InterGio announced a strategic partnership between the World Geospatial Industry Council, WGIC, and the German Association for Geodesy, Geoinformational Land Management, who's the organizer of InterGio. And yeah, this strategic partnership is to make InterGio a more global and vibrant platform for forward looking discussions on the geospatial ecosystem and the allied technologies. And of course, also your work of the committee of the diversity and equity section. So, yeah, just tell us a bit about your committee's work. Take us a bit with you in your, I mean, everyday experience. Yes, thank you. So, let me start by introducing WGIC, the World Geospatial Industry Council, which is an organization of companies in the geospatial sector. And what WGIC does is actually representing the industry and also enhance the role of geospatial in the world economy and facilitate exchanges between geospatial companies. And within WGIC, we have different committees. And one of them is the DEI committee that I'm the chair of. So, DEI is diversity, equity, and inclusion. So, as part of that committee, we try to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion within the geospatial community. And we do that by being advocates for DEI within our sector. And we started by putting together a white paper that was one of the first to actually present the DEI situation within our sector. And then we are now putting in place actions that in our mind will have improved DEI overall within geospatial sector. And yeah, what are the main challenges you are faced with the topic of the challenges for inclusion and diversity in the geospatial sector? Where do you see the main challenges? So, there are really many challenges. And looking at our sector, we have and we should have concern with lack of diversity. And I'm talking about diversity on race, diversity on gender, diversity on national origin. And if you actually look at companies, diversity of location of those companies. So, when you have an event like Intergeo, you will notice that the majority of participants are coming from the developed world. And you will notice that the majority of participants are white male, right? So, there is clearly a lack of diversity when you look at the geospatial community as a whole. So, that's the first challenge. How can we increase diversity within that geospatial community? And when it comes to inclusion, so what are the actions that we can put together for people to feel its sense of belonging? For people to feel like they are part of a larger community, regardless of their race, their gender, their national origin, their religion, or the sexual orientation. So, those are some of the challenges and needs that we have to address as part of the DEI committee within WGS. It's a really important work because my impression is too, I'm at Team Intergeo for 10 years and when I'm at the shows, there are so many men. And I'm really looking for more female power at the geospatial sector, of course. And of course, also, yeah, so race and gender shouldn't be any problem for the geospatial world because it's white and it has a big variety of technologies, applications, and it's future-oriented and it's really, really interesting. So, you put awareness on the topic and you made something very, yeah, special for this year, Intergeo, because you will present the train laser award. Take us into that, because what is the award focused on? And can you give us some examples of what it is about? Absolutely. And the jury is still deliberating on the award. But, and I have to mention this, we have to be proud of the leadership of our various companies within WGIC. They've been doing a very great job in increasing awareness and putting together GEI policies within their companies. So, I can name all of them on what they are specifically doing to make sure that within their own companies, GEI become an important element of their work. And that's what our awards are trying to to raise and trying to put a highlight on. So, we have two awards. One is for a company and we want, you know, once again, all of them are doing a tremendous job. But we want to pick one of them and showcase that company as the example of a company that is implementing, I would say, good policies when it comes to GEI. So, we want to see a company that can showcase what is to be done, you know, in order to create a more diverse, a more inclusive and a more equitable environment for their workforce. So, that's the first award. The second award is for an individual. So, we want to recognize a champion of GEI within the geospatial community. So, we have some good candidates. And like I said, the jury is still debating, is still working on selecting who's that best person is. But we really want someone that we can present that can be the face of GEI within the geospatial community. And the interview is really the best place to actually highlight what a company is doing when it comes to GEI and actually also to highlight the effort of whoever will be selected as the GEI champion. And I think the submissions are done. The end of the submissions was in August when I read your press release right. So, you have already seen some presentations for individuals and for leaderships with good examples for diversity and inclusion. And can you give us some insights what companies are doing and what people are doing who made their submission? Yeah, we were lucky enough to receive a lot of recommendations, right? A lot of companies that, and for the company award. So, it has to be a member of WGIC. So, we we didn't receive a lot of companies actually nominating themselves. So, that was very interesting. Having people outside of companies noticing what they are doing and nominating companies that they don't work for. So, that means they are doing something great, you know, for people outside of the company to notice how good of the job they're doing when it comes to GEI. So, we have some very good companies. And I know that, you know, whatever company would end up being the winner, that they're really, they are doing something great. And I read some of the nominations. You can tell it's going to be a difficult task to end up picking only one out of the many that were nominated. And same thing for the individual award. And for that one, we actually looking for an awardee that is, you know, just part of the geospatial community. It doesn't have to be a member of WGIC. And there too, we have some great nominees. And some people were actually nominated twice. So, which is a good sign that you're probably doing something right if more than one person, you know, send a nomination for you. And that also I expect a very real GEI champion to be awarded for this time. That's cool. That's super. So, I hope we'll have a little party because it's the first time that we do the Trailblazer Awards and interview and celebrate together these good examples for integration, inclusion and equity. And yeah. Well, Albert, just tell me a bit more about, for example, what kind of work or campaigns do you do for bringing this topic of GEI into the geospatial sector? For example, do you campaigns for more female professionals in the geospatial industry? Or does it just start with all the work for the GEI of the WGIC? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's on the white paper was a very good starting point, right? Because we have to acknowledge what we're missing. We have to acknowledge places where there is more work that needs to be done. So, that's the first action. The second one is to capture, because at the end of the WGIC itself, it's not the one making the changes, right? The companies are doing that themselves. So, we have to acknowledge what they're doing. And as part of the committees, the committee, we have representatives from various companies. So, also, by sharing what's happening in our individual company and bringing back to our co-workers, what we learn from others is a way to making sure that all together, we can improve GEI within the geospatial sector. And yes, we have some specific actions, such as looking at the diversity of leadership within the geospatial companies. So, how can we increase that diversity within the leadership? How can we create an environment where minorities, based on race, based on type, or whatever minorities, or even a handicap, create an environment for those minorities to feel like they have a place, to feel like they can contribute? And of course, advocating for a more diverse workplace, more women, more people of different races, people with different sexual orientation, people from different national origins, or people from whatever barrier they have and that we can use to make our companies better integrated. And that's at the individual level. There is also one part that we look at. When we look at the membership of WGIC, it's heavily companies from North America and West Europe. So, part of our effort at GEI is also to find ways for companies from the developing world, companies with small and medium companies to integrate WGIC. So, we want WGIC itself as an organization to be more integrated and to accept companies that are not like the usual companies that you think of when you think of geospatial. And having those companies from developing countries, those small and medium companies joining WGIC will make for better conversations, make for better understanding of challenges that are not only from multinational companies. So, thank you very much, Albert and also dear geospatial community. Let's join the Trader Blazer Awards and bring this very exciting and interesting and very important topic to Intergeo and the Intergeo community on October the 20th. That's the third day of Intergeo 2022 in Essen at the expo stage. And yes, celebrate the winners of the Trader Blazer Awards of the WGIC. And yeah, hope to see you there. Will you also join Intergeo in Germany this year? Yes, definitely. I will be there and I'm really looking forward to it. And then this once again, thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to the award in Intergeo. Super cool. So, we'll meet in person shortly. So, really, really exciting. Thank you very much for announcing the work of the WGIC here at Intergeo TV and see you in Essen Germany soon. Thank you very much, Albert.