The Lack of Geospatial Professionals Seems to be a Global Problem

Let’s not mince words…we are facing a shortage of trained, expert geospatial professional for the short and long term. We’ve discussed this issue before in our briefings from GEOINT. The same problem is being reiterated at the Map World Forum by people like Stig Enemark, president of FIG (The International Federation of Surveyors) and Martien Molenaar, president of ITC (International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation). An entire session at the Map World Forum was dedicated to "Capacity Building" a nice euphemism for an educational infrastructure that will support the training and development of geospatial professionals. This issue is also being addressed by a joint board of geospatial information agencies. Molenaar has come up with a rather complicated equation that says we must offer 1000 geospatial course each year and we must educate some 6000 professionals per year to serve the world’s requirement for geospatial needs. A board was established among these agencies to support capacity building in Africa, for example.