I started Spatial Thoughts in 2020 as an online training academy. We have been hosting cohort-based training courses ever since and the business has steadily grown over the years. As with many small businesses, most of our data is scattered across spreadsheets, emails, and different SaaS platforms. As the number of training participants grew, I found it increasingly hard to find the data I needed to make decisions. For example, I frequently would go down a rabbit hole to answer questions like,

• Which of our participants received scholarships for a course but haven’t yet completed the certification?
• Can I get a list of our QGIS-certified participants from Germany?
• Do we know anyone who is skilled in both Earth Engine and Python and lives in Australia?
• We are launching a new course and want to reach out to everyone who has completed our intermediate Python courses. Can we get their emails?

These were really difficult to answer and involved manual searches and digging through various spreadsheets. I had always dreamt of having a unified database that I could query and find an answer. This type of database – also known as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – is something out of reach for small businesses like mine. The costs and time involved for building something custom and tailored to my needs were never justified. But things have changed rapidly in the past few months. With AI-coding tools – like Claude Code – building systems like these is no longer out of reach. I spent a lazy afternoon with Claude Code and built exactly what I needed. Everything from data extraction to building a private web app. I was blown away by the capabilities of modern AI tools and want to share the process here.

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I was recently asked to deliver a session on Earth Science for kids. My daughter goes to an after-school science program at Max Science where they teach science with unique and fun hands-on experiments. They wanted to do an interactive session to introduce the kids to Earth Science and asked if I could deliver a guest talk for their kids in Grades 1 to 4. I loved the idea and developed a module titled The Science of Satellites to introduce the magic of remote sensing to primary school kids. The session ended up being a lot of fun, for the kids and me. In this post, I want to go through the materials and my experience teaching this session.

All the content developed for this session – including high-resolution graphics – is available freely for download. Scroll to the bottom to find the download link.

The 1.5 hour session was split into 3 parts:

• Part 1 Guess the Place A game to guess the place from satellite images
• Part 2: The Science of Satellites Learning what satellites do and how can you build and launch a satellite
• Part 3: Your Name from Space An activity where kids create their from letters seen from satellite images.

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As everyone who is involved in teaching and training knows, the past few months have been hard. We all had to make changes to accommodate working from home and adopting online teaching methods. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, I used to conduct all my training in-person. Either hosting it at a training center or at a client location. My materials, structure and instruction style was tuned to this setup. I was skeptical whether the experience of a classroom can be replicated – even partially – online.

Over the past 2 months, I have conducted numerous online training sessions. All my courses have been moved to a ‘live’ online class and even started offering short-format classes. I did a lot of research, talked to other trainers and spent a considerable effort in trying to make this transition. I thought sharing some of the lessons and best practices here will help fellow educators.

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I was invited to participate in a panel discussion on Geospatial Intelligence for #LetsTalkDeepTech Webcast hosted by Swiggy. I talked about the history and evolution of this space and gave a deep dive into solutions for deriving intelligence from imagery.

Below is the a longer version of my talk on evolution of location intelligence with some references. I also share a copy of my presentation at the end. Hope you find it useful. Agree/Disagree with my views? Let me know in the comments.

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A long pending weekend project is done. Printed, cut and folded a sturdy globe using the template from Le Paper Globe.

This is not only fun, but a good prop to learn more about Geography. I envision it would make a fun do-it-yourself project with kids of all ages.

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Many students have asked me for ideas on what topic they should choose for their Thesis. I have debated this myself when I was a student. The ideal topic would be the one that allows you to dive into a topic deeply as well as give you some practical skills that will help you landing a job. Here are some pointer that may help you make that decision.

Create a Mashup

A mashup is created by merging 2 or more sources of location data. There are variety of free data available for you to experiment with and create unique applications. Map mashups can be created using free tools such as Google Maps, OpenLayers, GeoCommons Maker!

Develop a plug-in for an open-source GIS

There is always a need to implement new features for open-source GIS software like QGIS or MapWindowGIS. You can implement a cool feature or customize the software for a particular domain. You will not only gain valuable experience developing among the best programmers but also this will be an impressive addition to your resume.

Work with an NGO

Most often students struggle to find good quality free GIS data which can be used in interesting ways. Contact local NGOs to see if you can help them analyze their location-specific data. Most NGOs collect some form of loation data and your GIS skills can come in handy to them. The result of such a project could be a unique GIS project that uses real on-the-ground data.

Build a Campus GIS

If you are at a university, a good project would be to put together a web-accessible campus information system. You could model the campus buildings in 3D, use satellite imagery via an API and overlay data about your campus. Such a system could be attractive to the administrator as well.

Develop a vehicle tracking system

You can buy a cheap GPS receiver and implement a vehicle tracking system. This will get you exposed to GPS/GSM protocols and get you hands-on knowledge that many companies worldwide are looking for. Add your own twist to the traditional tracking system by specializing it for walking directions, bus travel, toursut sightseeing, navigating the blind etc.

Do some ‘Green’ research

Everyone is turning to green and sustainable technologies. As an intern or a researcher, you could use your analytical skills to further the knowledge in this area. Wind power, solar energy, climate change etc. are great topics for GIS and Remote Sensing research.Analysing wind data to find best locations for wind turbines or using remote sensing images to detect climate change are some examples of projects. If you are a PhD student, you’ll find these topics complex and challenging enough for yor dissertation and you’ll stand to recieve grants or funds from governments as well.

Do you have more ideas to share? What project are you thinking of? Please leave a comment and help the GIS student community!