Voices of future

A competitive advantage in career

Adam Yau MPhil student The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong lsyau@polyu.edu.hk

During my three-year undergraduate study, I learnt a variety of things ranging from theories to applications and from practical techniques to sophisticated technology, developing myself towards a professional. The integration of concepts subjects and variegated applications, such as satellite orbit determination, location-based services (LBS), and natural hazards monitoring has always enlightened me, giving me useful ideas about research topics and further sustainable development.

Our Chief Executive of the HKSAR Government announced in his 2007- 08 Policy Address the undertaking of 10 major infrastructure projects in the coming years. A total of US$32 billion in total expenditure will be committed and around 250,000 new jobs will be created in related industries. The policy anticipates a signifi cant demand for geomatics professionals in the near future.

Furthermore, due to advances in computer technology and the improvement of spatial data handling algorithms, the number of GIS users in other fi elds including Logistics, Intelligent Transport Systems, Environmental Studies and Urban Planning has increased dramatically over recent years. I am confi dent that our graduate will have a competitive advantage in their career development.

Economic crisis will lead to innovation

Simone Savasta Ph. D. Student Politecnico di Torino, Italy simone.savasta@polito.it

The GNSS education is not a simple “science per se”: it is interdisciplinary and it can be extremely rich of interactions with different private companies. The specialization in GNSS/Geomatics topics might be today the right answer for a young student in this so critical world-wide period. I hope economical crisis would lead to a burst for a new innovation rush that rewards the more productive sectors for the medium and short time market period. University masters or Ph. D. programs focused on the localization/navigation field introduce to a very active scientifi c community, both for the basic research and for the R&D areas. Obviously, our future strictly depends on the interest of small medium enterprises in investment for new services and products ICT oriented. Nevertheless, the acquisition of personal skills on the navigation fi eld can create competitive profi les for production and management of innovative navigation-oriented applications, in a world-wide market that today reach out from the USA to the Australia via China and India. Among the topics in Satellite Navigation I had the chance to face several interesting opportunity: the Galileo advent and in particular its Safety of Life services, will contribute to the development of applications focused on security aspects and on certifi cation of the GNSS signal. The fully-software migration from traditional hardware technologies represents one of the major fascinating challenge of the last years, assuring more fl exibility, more system control and easier integration for embedded applications. This will integrate dedicated software for the quality signal monitoring, for example for interference detection and mitigation, assuring reliability for the future GNSS based services.

The challenge is to increase the accuracy

Xiaofan Li University of Colorado at Boulder, USA xiaofan.li@live.com

I am a Chinese student studying GNSS at University of Colorado at Boulder. GNSS caught my eyes initially through its application in car navigation system. Believing that the civilian applications of GNSS will have promising future, I started my research journey of GNSS in Japan and now continue it in US.
I personally believe that students in the fi eld of GNSS will have a great career in future no matter in academia or industry. The GNSS applications, from personal navigation in cell phones to precise applications in precise agriculture and seismic monitoring have enormous industrial values and attract interests from both government and private companies.
Besides, the family of GNSS is growing that Europe is building the Galileo Navigation Satellite System, and China will implement the Beidou (Compass) Navigation Satellite System. The science and engineering of GNSS is becoming a world wide hot topic, as a student in this domain, I am very confident about its future and my own.
The challenges of the GNSS technology are how to increase the sensitivity and accuracy of the GNSS receiver without largely increasing the cost or introducing any latency. In future, the cooperation of GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and even Beidou could bring more visible satellites to the user, thus the dilution of precision will be greatly improved.
The indoor navigation or GNSS navigation under urban environment are also the challenging parts for the GNSS scientists and engineers.

An endless source of discovery

Chris Goodall PhD student University of Calgary, Canadaclgoodal@ucalgary.ca

From my perspective, as a PhD student planning to fi nish in less than a month, the Geomatics realm goes far beyond individual technologies, such as GNSS. There are many different fi elds such as geodesy, mapping/ surveying, positioning & location, atmospheric study etc.
The point here is that all these fields deal with time and/or space in some way, which means their importance to everyday life is paramount. The measurement of space and time brings about nearly all of the applications that are widely grouped into Geomatics. While this description is broad, it should be appreciated that a focused education
gives a student many of the details for a single application. A quality education not only does this but also gives the student a broader perspective of how the methods can be applied to a variety of applications dealing with time and space. Geomatics does exactly this by combining elements of electrical, mechanical, civil, aerospace, systems design and computer engineering. Since Geomatics is so wide reaching the challenge here is to stay focused long enough to understand the details of one’s research before being lured off to learn about something new and exciting. My particular fi eld, positioning and location, is an enabler of other services that are required on a daily basis. The Geomatics education I have received has given me an opportunity to pursue my own product development that will be rolled into a business. Even in uncertain economic times people still need to know where their UPS parcel is, if their holiday fl ight is on time, where the closest gas station is, or where their children are.
My education has given me the knowledge, confi dence and networking
abilities to push my academic learning into actual products. To me knowledge is everything, and from my experience Geomatics is an endless source of discovery which will only grow faster as more ideas are put forward. Staying current with all this information is the hard part, but there’s nothing wrong with lifelong learning.

Graduates need to “market” themselves strategically

		Karla Edwards PhD Candidate Ohio State University, USA edwards.582@gmail.com

I have been a student and instructor in the field of Geomatics/GNSS for over 15 years and I readily admit I am a certified geospatial data junkie! I specialize in Geodesy and GPS; the former having been substantially revolutionized over the last 2 decades by the latter. Consider, for example, that Geodesy is defined as the science of measuring both the shape and the gravity field of the earth. However, because of GPS, determination of the Earth’s shape is less difficult than it used to be. Plus, with the increasing numbers of orbiting satellites, gravity field determination is also morphing. The inevitable result? An implicit redefinition of geodesy and the role of the geodesist. This is but one example of an area of Geomatics that is changing the face of the profession at an amazing rate and placing a greater demand upon us as students to stay relevant.
A significant challenge to our students is the fact that Geomatics is not a well-known or mainstream engineering or science discipline. Therefore, the skill of a graduate may not be readily recognized or solicited, requiring that our graduates “market” themselves all the more strategically.
In this regard, presenting both a challenge and an opportunity is the need for geomaticians to function on multi-disciplinary teams. Consider that, electrical engineers have made a significant contribution to the advance of GNSS; and various types of geo-scientists and engineers have also been able to capitalize on the use of GPS technology. However, given the ease with which GPS promotes a “push-button, black box” mentality, the geomatician’s expertise could potentially be overlooked.
Be that as it may, I still see Geomatics/GNSS as an extremely practical field which melds seamlessly with other disciplines. Hopefully, therefore, graduates will not be “pigeon-holed” into the traditional surveying and GIS roles but will increasingly be given opportunities to function in less traditional arenas.