Introducing Nicolette Beggache from Buckinghamshire, UK!
What do you do? I’m an HDS Technical Support Engineering & Training Specialist
How long have you been in the industry? I’ve been in a support role since 2014, but I have been working in the industry since 2000.
Are you part of any associations or organisations you would like us to mention? I am a member CICES and a brand ambassador for Hexagon. I am also on the top 40 under 40 nominations for Geospatial Influential Individuals in 2018. I am now the main Technical specialist trainer for our Reality capture survey equipment within Leica Geosystems.
Why do you want to be a GKiS Brand Ambassador? When I was growing up, the industry was always thriving on man-power in a male dominated workplace. My teacher told me that girls shouldn’t take technical drawings, because they could not understand 3D. I really wanted to prove him wrong, and excelled at 3D drawings and modelling, way above my peers. I now work with 3D pointclouds and survey as good as any other surveyor in the industry for laser-scanning. I really want to give children the positive reinforcement that they can achieve greatness in any industry, but even more so in industries that previously were not considered ‘normal environments, based on gender’. I also would like to help kids gain a better understanding of all the different opportunities that are available to them in this Geospatial era.
Why is it important for kids to know about surveying and the wider geospatial industry? The future generation has to be shown how surveying is an integral part of our technological journey. They are the future of tech evolution and have to feel inspired to innovate.
What are you going to do as an ambassador for GKiS? Spread the word amongst children with STEM events and social media.
What are your hobbies? I love photography, painting and reading, but also enjoy gardening.
If you/your company had a GKiS character, what would it be? A cape wearing super-hero! We already have a green dragon on GKiS. 😊
What poster or resource would you like to see next from GKiS? I have noticed kids love games/apps on their devices. I know this is farfetched but an app based on the cartoon that you have in the GIS/ICES magazines – to give like a ‘story-line’ type scenario – would be great to get kids interacting and maybe something where you can use STEM activities to pass levels etc. A digital app resource would be good (unless one already exists for GKis and I just don’t know about it.)
Anything else you want to add that you think our audience (surveyors, teachers, parents) would be interested in? We should focus on skills shortages to fill those gaps. After a discussion with some children from my daughter’s school – they are all researching their future jobs by popularity but are not realising that the jobs that are popular are the ones people with study for and there will be too many people applying for the same job – rather than focussing on the opposite spectrum. Also – children in year 8 and 9 are the ones that are choosing their ‘career paths’ by subjects, therefor inspiring at that age, is critical.