NEWS

My GIS internship experience – A goodbye from our latest intern

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This summer I joined IPIS as a GIS intern between my first and second year of master and discovered a group of professionals whose work drive insights for decision-making and governance through research and technology.

Walking into the building, I was warmly greeted by the staff and discovered the vast collection of books in the library of this research institute.

The last three months were full of doing, learning and network building. My time here was spent mostly in wrangling and visualizing data using R; contributing to the development of web applications using web technologies such as JavaScript; writing database query for data management and open data publication using Postgres/Postgis; creating illustrations using Adobe Illustrator; designing maps using QGIS; and investigating land-use changes caused by human activities using satellite imageries.

More specifically, I completed two major maps while I edited a couple of others, contributed to the development and update of three critical web maps, created statistical graphs for the report of a field survey, developed a comprehensive story map to chronicle the work IPIS has been involved in in Central Africa over the last ten years, created an infographic for a report, published curated datasets to IPIS’ open data portal and used satellite imageries to examine the extent to which mining activities have influenced changes in land-use features. I was also involved in hosting students from the “Mines to Finger” summer school workshop organized by the University of Antwerp.

No doubt that my time here has helped me grow my career profile while further improving my confidence as a GIS professional. The dynamic team here has been very supportive of my growth. For the final half of my Master’s degree, I will be leveraging the competence acquired here in school assignments and my final thesis.

Cheers to IPIS doing the excellent work they do in making the world a better place for everyone.

Adebayo Ishola