It’s been a busy year of events and activities for the early careers network!
April: “What can Geospatial Organisations offer you?” Webinar
Our first event of the year was our “What can Geospatial Organisations offer you?” webinar, chaired by Will Jones and organised by Jon Allsup. The webinar highlighted the wealth of resources, support and opportunities available to early career professionals from three membership organisations: Association for Geographic Information, British Cartographic Society and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
June: AGI awards at GEO Business
Co-Chair Tom Perks attended GEO Business and handed out the award for the AGI ‘Early Career Professional of the Year’ to Lucy Main, Associate Data Scientist at Ordnance Survey. ECN committee members judging the award commended the impact of Lucy’s work, including solving complex data science problems for multiple government agencies, as well as leading the integration of machine learning, AI and computer vision into cloud computing platforms. Congratulations Lucy!
October: CGI & AGI: Exploring Geospatial Career Pathways Webinar
In a collaboration with CGI, a panel of former and current CGI graduates shared their personal stories, challenges and successes from their early career journeys during a lunchtime webinar. It was an insightful session chaired by Doug Leno, with a range of great questions from the audience including key transferable skills, approaches to data security and the use of AI.
October: Networking Event at Ordnance Survey HQ, Southampton
We hosted an in-person early careers networking event at the Ordnance Survey HQ in Southampton. It was fantastic opportunity for early career professionals to meet in an informal setting; other highlights included a guided tour of OS artefacts and Geo-Bingo! Thanks to ECN volunteer Jamie Heath for organising this event.
November: Spotlight on the Rising Stars of Geospatial Webinar
We collaborated with the Government Geography Profession (GGP) to showcase the rising stars in the geospatial sector. Chaired by ECN Co-Chair Cerys Butterill, it was fantastic to hear from the winners of the GGP Rising Star Award (Tyde D’Souza, Jasmine Elliott and Gabriella Fasoli) and the AGI Early Career Award (Lucy Main) as they shared their standout projects and career journeys. A diverse range of projects was presented – from detecting seals with AI to R-tree indexing for machine learning – and there was great engagement from the audience during the live Q&A!
November: Panel Discussion at the AGI Foresight Report 2030 Conference
ECN committee members Kirsty Thomson, Will Jones, Jamie Heath and Tom Perks gave their take on the future of geospatial during a panel discussion expertly chaired by AGI Council member Bob Chell. A range of topics mentioned in the foresight 2030 report were debated, including the awareness and appreciation of geospatial, the impact of AI on ways of working and the evolving skills landscape.
Early Careers Network 2026
Heading into 2026, ECN is building on a highly successful 2025 with more exciting plans in development including hosting more in-person networking events around the UK, following the success of their recent event at the Ordnance Survey HQ in Southampton. They are also planning on hosting a mini-series of webinars focused on GIS software, doing more outreach with schools and attending other industry events such as GEO Business and AGI regional meet ups.