CNG mentorship program
The Cloud-Native Geospatial Forum1 promotes geospatial accessibility and usability, with a focus on the cloud-native paradigm2. To this end, the CNG “create vendor-neutral events, content, and educational opportunities”.
Currently, the CNG is looking for mentors and mentees to participate in a new CNG mentorship program. From the announcement:
The sharing of knowledge amongst members of the community helps us all thrive and grow (…). That is why we are launching the CNG Mentorship Pilot Program: a roughly six-month program that pairs geospatial professionals with mentees for regular one-on-one meetings to help the mentee grow in their career.
Mentees and mentors can be of any career stage: early, mid or senior. And the program has three scopes one can choose from:
- General career guidance
- Technical guidance about specific tools, methods or similar
- Project-focused guidance
The program runs from May to October and culminates in an optional in-person meetup in the USA. Mentees and mentors should meet at least twice a month for one hour on each occasion. It is not made explicit, but to me it seems obvious that the program is open to participants from all over the world and that meetings can be held virtually.
A mentorship program for Switzerland?
I think a similar program would suit the SGS3 very well. The SGS domain “Building and Strengthening Skills” has (only) one action in 2026. And a recent report on Switzerland’s geospatial education pipeline and workforce has found some areas of concern. Maybe a mentorship program could help address some of these issues.
Footnotes
CNG.↩︎
I.e., taking full advantage of the cloud computing model; in the data world typically through enabling partial downloads of file contents through so-called HTTP range requests.↩︎
The Swiss Geoinformation Strategy, a national action strategy with annual action plans for the geoinformation sector in Switzerland.↩︎