Be black. Be bold. Be innovative. Show the world equitable geo. We're coming together as a collective to celebrate people of African descent, the diaspora, and talking about geospatial equity and justice. You're listening to The North Star Gaze, a podcast with intimate stories from geo luminaries. I'd like to think of today's guest as someone who quite literally, shapes how we see and respond to the world. Through, satellite imagery and GIS. She's been in the field for quite some time. I've known this guest for some time and she's quite inspirational when it comes to her work, not just in terms of practicability, but also in terms of how impactful the work she's done when it comes to the intersection of, satellite imagery, environmental resilience, and emergency response. And so I'm really excited about this guest. She's been a mentor as well in this field. She is Kenyan and I'm also really excited about that as well. She's done quite impactful work, very impactful work, around the African continent as well in understanding food security and what that looks like from a data perspective to help national governments and county governments address food security using data and most recently, she also founded the Women in Space Kenya, which is an organization that focuses on mentorship. And and so allow me to welcome onto the pod today. Hi, Stella. How are you? Thank you for such a wonderful introduction. We are so excited to have you. First of all, thank you so much for saying yes to come to the North Star Gaze podcast. I think before we deep dive into the conversation. I've known you as so many things from a mentor towards Yes. And sensing expert, a renowned specialist with a world food program. And so I'm curious How would you introduce yourself? Okay, so my name is Stella Mutaye. I come from Kenya. But currently reside in Europe. I have a background in geospatial. So much of what I do is focused on maps, focused on analysis, but more focused on policymaking. So the end product of what I do is Whether it's food security, whether it's emergency response and preparedness using geospatial analysis, everything is geared to how do we ensure that whatever we do as a technical perspective of GIS is communicated to the policy makers and it enables them to have a better and easier decision making at the onset. So basically that's what I do. Wow. That is awesome. I have to tell you Stella, the guests that we've had, and we've had some extraordinary guests on The Gaze this season. But I was particularly excited about this episode because of the strength and the variety of things that you have done already. And so this next question, all of the work you've done, developing programs with the World Food Program, how do you see it? And I'm so excited to see your role changing as we move into the future. Yes I think for me, my key focus now is to how do I enhance my capacity from just map making and emergency response and in terms of food security analysis into how do we match that with climate analysis? So I'm moving forward from just spatial perspective to enhancing my capacity. To climate analysis and seeing how do we ensure that we enhance our capacity in terms of GIS actionability for monitoring of climate analysis, and how will that influence food security analysis in the future. So how do we predict what is to come, and how does it evolve into supporting different countries in terms of respite. and then the climate before hunger strikes of response before any conflict arises, and it will impact their food security. So basically, I'm seeing myself going to the climate analysis filled. that is fascinating and this issue of food security is becoming. Important even here in the United States where people think that we have so much everything, right? We cannot buy eggs right now. My, my joke right now is if I'm dating, like, don't bring me roses, bring me some eggs. Yeah. I'm going to back up a bit and go back a few steps and I'm curious Just as we talk about how you get into a point where you're moving towards ensuring what you're building is now actually enforcing and in boardrooms to actually influence a and policy. Yeah. How did you initially get involved in GIS? That's quite interesting. So my, my father as well is a lecturer. So he has a field in geography and but majorly in urban planning. And so he's the one who actually told me about geospatial for the very first time being a lecturer. And I thought that's very weird, because I wanted to become something in business. But either way, I found myself into the geospatial as one of the first cohort in Dedenki Math in Kenya. Transcribed And I think in my second and third year is when I gained the grip of what I really desired to be in. But much more is after that, I gained a lot of mentorship immediately after my bachelor's from people who had done this course before and told me about the campuses they had encountered, like the universities they had gone into, especially like I went to university of 20 in the Netherlands, I did my master's in geoinformatics. And that observation and so they told me about the scholarship and I applied and that's where my interest actually began very passionately about geospatial. But much more was begun by my dad. I owe him this. Oh, shout out to your dad. Thank you. You know that you had a route into this work, Stella, that is somewhat unique. And most people that we encounter, first of all, they don't have a parent who can expose them to this type of work, but you also found mentors along the way. And that's one of the things that we as North Star, we're looking for ways that we can help bolster the careers, right? If you didn't have your dad, I'm hoping that Northstar could be the kind of place where the next young Stella can come and find ways to, learn more and find ways to advance their careers. But even though you're so advanced already in your career, how can we be of service to you in your career? I think for me is introducing me to platforms that are growing in terms of geospatial advocacy for food and food security analysis. I am more keen because coming from Africa, we talk a lot, but implementation is a bit still the gap is there. So we have a lot of policies driving on food security, but less focusing on what is space capability in terms of food security. How can geospatial or just general space capability be helpful, not just in Kenya, but much more in different countries? So for me, it would be more helpful if I can get. People who are focusing on policy advocacy, but much more using geospatial or space capabilities, and how can we collaborate or how can we foster collaboration whereby we support each other with the technologies they're building, and they can teach us on this other side so that we can be able to evolve together because now AI is coming, but I don't think in our African countries we have that capacity yet, but it's something that's growing. So I think for us to be trained in that Perspective would be helpful. So for me, it's being introduced in spaces where food security analysis in terms of policymaking and much more using emerging technology trends have been implemented would be very beneficial for me as well, because it will bring a lot more on collaboration and much more support making, not just for me, but for other people as well in the African continents. Fantastic. Thank you for that. Oh, my God. As you're speaking. I'm just like, Yes, please preach. You've talked about all the gaps. We've been seeing all this time and just even I end up preparedness and a country to get to that section of this conversation and your thoughts as well on what's happening globally and what that means for us when it comes to space capability. So just to go back a bit to your food security and what you do when you talk about the intersection of climate analysis. He's and food security. And one of the things that struck me in our previous conversation was some of the thoughts you had, um, we talk about food security, but we rarely talk about the nitty gritties when it comes to food insecurity and the gendered impacts as a global conversation That's such a good question. In a normal African economy or country, women are the most people that are found doing farming a lot. So basically in the farms, in the cooking, it's women a lot. So anytime you negate or you remove women from the bracket of food security and nutrition, they become the most vulnerable because one, they are not educated on how Climate information affects their food crops. They're not educated on what are the best seasons for planting and sowing. They're not educated on what crops are suitable for certain seasons. So if you leave farming for the women alone and they're not educated, it means that the kind of crops that are coming from the Plantation places are not effective in our homes. So that's why it's a very important as we empower men to go to school to get educated. It's very important to empower women on what are the new technologies that are coming up and what are the shifts in terms of crop analysis that is coming up, and I experienced this when I was doing agriculture coffee production using Earth Observation Digital North Africa when I was collecting data, a lot of the people that filled my form are actually women for coffee farming, and what was more interesting is because most of them planted the coffee and now they are harvesting the coffee, so this information is more important for them because next time if we don't tell them, by the way these are rainy season more it might actually make their crops be watered and they may not get the effective crop you're expecting. So then they end up losing more crops and also getting more disappointed, but it's because we haven't matched the impact of women in food security analysis. And so that's why I feel it's very important. A lot of men support women when it comes to taking the food to the market, but we don't actually support of women in terms of during understanding the seasons of planting and harvesting and the technologies that are useful and how GIS can be supportive towards them. So I feel like there's a lot of gap in gender mainstreaming when it comes to food security analysis and as well as nutrition. Also, I bring in children because Anytime women are involved, children as well are directly involved because whatever is being yielded by women in the homes, children are a direct beneficiary of whatever crops is being harvested. But I noticed when I was doing my analysis is that a lot of children are always present when their parents are in the farm yields. So basically they know the seasons, they know when the season is about to start, they are constantly with their parents. So they grow up seeing one of them. Mothers did, and then they carry the same mentality of farming in terms of technology, in terms of seasons, into their own farming. So what it becomes transferred to different generations, but the technology is not. Growing and evolving in them. So I feel like there has to be a place where we educate women, especially on the technologies that is coming up so that they don't lose a lot of crop yields. We, and they get to understand how can I use my mobile phone using GIS to track how much weather is. Um, how can I understand which crop is coming and how can that be useful in terms of my crop production? How can I understand which crop or which season is for planting for which particular crop so that I don't end up losing a lot of food? So that basically is how I feel like technology is impactful to women. Wow. Wow. Yeah, um, I'm curious on, this, there's this conversation around how do we quantify, quote unquote, housework for women, right? Because, and when it comes to economics, we're talking about Yeah. GDPs and governments and countries not being able to recognize the effort that goes into the homework, right? Like when you're waking up, getting your kids ready for school, and basically, you're literally pumping a lot of money into the economy as you're doing this. Even when you're talking about food security, when you just talked about, it's women who are doing this. And are pushing the economy. It's sort of like that conversation on, how money mainly in African countries, circulate in the informal sector. And it's mainly in markets and it's women who are in these markets, but we've never been able to quantify that. And I'm curious from your perspective. Do you see an opportunity there? Is there a gap there in terms of knowing the impact of women and the input they're putting into the food security and the food traceability pipeline? So one of the greatest things I learned during the coffee plantation research is, and I think it can be implemented easily, is quantifying how much women are working in the farm. So every woman is assigned to a particular acre of a farm. So if that farm is identified with an ID, that this woman is working in this particular field. And this is a copy that was expected or came out from this particular field, then it's we are able to quantify that this is the value that she has brought out of our farm. So anytime there's a value that's increasing, it means and it can be directly related to her farm. She can get her produce because what I understood is this farmers register their farm yields, based on the size of the farm, and then they take it to them. Company board of coffee production and say, this is what my farm got to produce. And this is what I am giving to the coffee production board for them to sell for me in the market price. So I feel the gap that was there was that many women didn't have a way of having their records put in terms of their land. So most of this land is under the men. So when the produce or the reward of the farm comes, it comes to the man, it doesn't come to the woman. And I found that was actually the gap. So a lot of education literacy needs to be done on women being educated on how do we assess land? How is land obtained? How is my name obtained in that particular land? How do I get to understand what is the produce that my land is getting? Giving out and how can I be a direct beneficiary? So most women are suffering because they don't know that these rights are up to them. They don't know that they need to speak. So at the end of the day, the person who has the information and the knowledge is the one who gets to benefit. So in my own time, how can data be important? I think we need to register how many new women work. How many women are associated by particular farm yield, particular season, and once that is recorded, it's registered together with their IDs as they give out their farm yields to the farmer, to the farm places, and they say that this is the particular farm yield that my farm has produced in this particular season. They're able to get their reward. Secondly, is growing women beyond the farm. I think a lot of women are just within the scope of planting and harvesting. So how do we get women into the leadership spheres such that we don't only have the men doing the leadership of farming and crop yield analysis or food security analysis within a region? Because that was also a thing I noticed women are actually doing the work, but it's the men overseeing it. So I thought to myself, okay, why don't we put women into these leadership spaces? Because the more they're there, the more they're able to influence the voices that they have and that they carry within it. And that's important because anytime you do a field site visit to collect data, the most important people are actually women. They can tell you where these farms are, even without you having to hire anyone. They know where the farms are, and they know exactly where the beacons are, and they know exactly which particular family is expected to be produced. So when we have Women representative into this leadership being our survey forms like I used to give some of them to be able to feel for me. That helps. I think partly is how do we equip digital phones to the women because most women in the farm don't know how to use digital phones. And I think if you're talking about data, we need to talk about how do we enhance capacity of women to understand the emerging technological trends, because most of them don't even know what a GPS is. And so that should be the first things that we should be able to identify. So for example, one of the things I was thinking is how can farmers take pictures of their farms and send it to the government for analysis. But if the women are the ones doing the farming directly and they don't even know how to use digital funds, then we'll not even get the correct data. So I think capacity building has to be done on technology for women in the farming places too. We should have digital literacy on the kind of technology, whereas if you're going to teach them on the use of GPS on their phones and have survey forms for them to collect data on their farm yields every particular season, and then we are able to track this. Particular form was filled by this farmer. Who is this lady in this particular land? Then we are able to access their yields. Wow. Wow. You know, Stella, we often ask our guests about their biggest breakthroughs, and how those breakthroughs were impactful, but you have so many, I'm going like, my goodness, where do we begin and trying to understand your biggest breakthrough and maybe the breakthrough It doesn't have to be yours, but where do we need to help you break through to others, right? To address some of these issues, the data literacy, putting tools and technology in the hands of people, getting those who are involved with policy making to understand that women. are critical to their own understanding. I'm sitting here going like, how do I ask this woman who's done so much already, what her biggest breakthrough is? I feel like you're doing everything. It's the other people who need to break through, but I'm going to ask the question anyhow. What do you think has been your biggest breakthrough in GIS and why was that impactful to you and to the communities that you serve? That's good. So recently I've done something on food security analysis in Sudan. And for anyone who knows, Sudan is currently undergoing one of the biggest conflict for the past one year. And what I was doing is basically doing seasonal monitoring, crop land assessment, and assessing the impact of conflict on farmers because Sudan is highly irrigated. My biggest breakthrough is. Identifying the impacts that it has caused before and after the conflict and what opportunities my organization should enhance in terms of which areas or zones should they announce food security analysis, which zone should they take food security to, and much more, it supports the country office to identify that these are the particular zones that we need to focus on. That I felt was my recent breakthrough. Another one is beginning the women in space Kenya, I felt if you're going to start advocacy on geospatial and bridging the gap of women in the space sector, I think we need to start by mentorship. I am a product of mentorship and I understand how important it is, but also. Understanding that Stella alone cannot change everything. I am just 1 percent of the change. 99 percent is all of us coming together like what you're doing as well as the podcast. Educating people of what other great people are doing so that we are able to reach more and more people to work together. And so I think for me it's the Women in Space Kenya mentorship. We've just launched our first cohort of mentorship and my goal is to see it grow in a place whereby The young girls can know the opportunities that are there globally, internationally and locally, and harness their capacity in terms of confidence, in terms of upscaling their skills, and in terms of also going into the field and supporting other young women to come up as well. And much more because most of these girls come from communities or villages where food security is a problem. So whatever they're learning, they're taking it as a solution to their community. So it's one girl changing the whole community. And I think that's how I feel for me. That's my greatest impact. Seeing these young women impact their community within their skills that they have. So it's one person changing another life, changing a whole community. Amazing. Thank you. I feel so inspired by this conversation, Stella, on so many levels. I think, first of all, it's just the relatability of the things you're talking about, right? And so from, I'm curious as well, when it comes to the contributions, and initiatives, from your perspective, what do you think we can do more, as Black people in STEM, as young people across the continent, globally, How do we move the needle? What initiative would you like to see more from us Yeah, that's a very good question. I was just thinking about it yesterday. I think having something called Atlantic dialogue collaboration because one of the things I've noticed Africa, we do our own thing. The U. S. You do your own thing. Every continent is doing their own thing. But I think having an Atlantic dialogues fear whereby we dialogue on what we're doing. And what opportunities because the challenges you experience in Africa in terms of food is not the very same challenge America is facing. We may have the same problem of food, but the challenge of getting the food is different. And so I feel like we need to have a conversation or place where we can converse together in terms of what is the problem we are all facing and how can we support each other because every continent as much as it has a As a challenge has its strength. For example, Africa. We have very bright young minds. Very, bright young minds that can be able to think of technological solution. But what hinders us is the finances. What hinders us is the political unrest that comes with it, or even corruption that comes with it. In the U. S. as well, they have a different particular challenge as well. So how do we bring the issues we are all facing into a place of common thing that our agenda is to Solve this food insecurity. So how do we bring together our skill set? Is it that we need to do interchanges? Do we bring the people from Africa to the U. S. U. S. to Africa? Is it funding? How do we ensure that we're independent in our own ways, but still collaborate together? Is it understanding of the emerging technological trends? Because I feel like Europe understands is growing faster in terms of technological trends than Africa. So How can they be supportive in terms of our skill set? So I think it's important for us to understand that if we are scaling our skill set in Africa to address food security in terms of technology, that they are much more ahead of us. And how can we also be of support to them? So at the end of the day, I feel Atlantic Dialogue collaboration is the most effective thing that we need to do now. Okay. So. Stella, we had a theme for our homecoming event this year, which is around art, geography, feminism, and creating an Afro futuristic utopia, right? So what might that look like? I'm thinking about some of the books that I've read. One of my favorite authors is Octavia Butler. I don't know if you've read her. Everybody else I know is reading the Parable of the Sower right now, which is about. A dystopian future here in the United States, but I'd like you to imagine what might an Afrofuturistic utopia look like and what would it look like to you? First of all, that's a fascinating theme. I've really not heard of such a theme for quite some time. I think I look at in terms of planting and sowing in terms of what we do now will affect the future we are dreaming about. And so whatever we do in the stem field is like we are putting seeds, the seeds will not grow now, they will grow in the next five to 10 years. And that will be the fruits of what we are doing now. So if we don't do advocacy, That's a seed we are planting. So in the next 10 will die. If we decide to do mentorship now, it's a seed in the next 10 years. The seed of that mentorship will drive into policymaking, will drive into the leadership spheres. It will drive into taking the women in STEM to another level. So I'd really much related to planting and sowing them. Whatever we do now will affect the next five to 10 years in whatever sphere, either mentorship, either collaboration, either advocacy, And if we don't do what we need to do now, it'll affect still the next 10 years. Yeah. You're planting one way or the other, right. Exactly. I think you're planting a good seed or you're failing to plant a good seed. Right? Exactly. So exactly. One way or the other, you are planting and you, we will reap what we are Exactly. Planting what we're planting. From your perspective, Stella, and just on this conversation, I'm curious to know, just based on your journey. what do you think are the most underappreciated aspects of your work? I think the time it takes to produce an analysis, I think from my own perspective as a geospatial analyst, a lot of people read a lot on maps and they assume that it's just sitting on a computer, clicking one thing and the map comes and looks beautiful and communicates. But like what I was talking about the Sudan analysis, taking me a whole month to do it. But when the country office received it, it was like This is so nice. It, can you add this? Can you add this? So in their mindset, they think it's a one day thing, but what they don't understand, there's comprehension behind it. There's the understanding of how it evolved. There's the thinking capacity of what needs to be done, which data needs and much more people undermine a lot of geospatial analysis because they think. Data is available. A lot of times data is not there. And even if it's there, it's not in the good format that you want to work with. So you spend more time doing data cleaning, data analysis, and making the data make sense to the end user much more beyond who the user of the data is. So I think for me, it's the time it takes to do analysis. That's the most undermining thing. The output is not a magic, it's a process. Yes, and that's on geospatial workflow X guys, it's not as easy as you think. Um, I as we come to the end of the conversation, I'm curious on, imagine trends that you exited about, you mentioned briefly about AI and mm-hmm . Our preparedness within the continent as well. Yes. And so I'm curious, what other directions are you really pumped about, um, and how you see that shaping food security and the work that you do. I think one of the trends that is dying that kind of scares me is gender inclusivity. I feel if we don't take care in as much as we are focusing on AI and everything, we might lose the touch of the imbalance that is there. And when I talk about gender, it's just not men and women. I'm talking about even Continental about Africans, about black women being involved. So if we don't take care with the trend that is going on and we kill, diversity and inclusion in one way or another, we may end up killing the participation of young women that are coming up from the black community. And that in itself will affect a lot in terms of policymaking. So that's one of the trend that I am scared about. Secondly, is. It's not the trend of the new technology. It's the knowledge and the capacity building behind it. So we cannot stop new technologies from coming. But if we don't equip the young people with this new technology that's coming up, it means there's a huge gap. So we'll have new technologies coming up, even next year, I'll better show you this new technology already being made. Now, but if we look now, how many young people are built capacity on a I 10 percent and much more 2%. So if you bring another one, we're still lagging behind to grasp the technology. Now, the next technology is a bit difficult for us. So I feel the capacity knowledge and enhancement is a big gap in the Newton trending technologies are coming up. So I'm not really concerned about the new tech training technologies. It's much more the gender inclusivity and much more. the knowledge capacity enhancement that needs to be done. I really like that angle. I don't think we've had that angle before. And so I like how rich and holistic and unique your approach is and fresh as well. As we wrap up these one more question I've just thought of, and you just talked about diversity, equity and inclusion, and my world has just gone to what's happening politically. And so with the current dynamic of what's happening, in terms of funding structures for the continent, we've seen funding being pulled out of the continent, for example, and I think we've seen how impactful that has been, like a whole demographic has been affected from this other side, from health to, employability. And that also goes all the way to granular level at household level. And so I'm curious on your thoughts on funding structures for the continent and how you see that evolving in the current. political dynamic. And we're talking about this from a technological aspect. We need from a space aspect as well, right? We need earth observation, right? We need funding around that. We need understability around how that affects climate change and what that looks like. And so how would you chime in to that conversation with your thoughts as well around, how you see that affecting us, right? The continent globally. How that how what's happening is going to affect technology uptick, funding for the continent, funding for things that are important like earth observation and AI. What are your thoughts on that? Okay, that's quite a nice question. I think for me we need to understand what affects us home because, as I said before, every continent has its own problems. It's just that the dimension of the problem is bigger in one and smaller in another based on the problem. I think I'd focus on how does that problem affect us immediately in the next few days. and focus on is health a concern in our country? Is food a concern in our country? How do we diversify whatever resources we have to ensure that whatever we have now is the most sustainable thing? So irrespective of whether the funding comes or not is, it's really diversifying what we currently have as a country. Two is harnessing in terms of shifting our mechanism of use of things and technology, because as I said before, initially, chiefs used to hold meetings in communities to address farmers. Now, most farmers have their phones, so you can send messages, so you don't need to call everyone, you can just ensure everyone has a message, and in your office you have a message to communicate about something. So how do we embrace new technology, but less cost effective. That's something we need to balance because people assume that the newer the technology, the more the change, the more the money that we have to be pumped in. So we have to negotiate. Is it really a must we embrace this new technology? Of course, it's new, but is it a must? Is this something we need as a country on the continent? For example, in Kenya, I don't feel like we need it immediately. We need a lot on health and food security. And then number three is. Let's embrace the space sector, because when I was growing into the space sector, I learned that the banking sector didn't understand what geospatial was much. Maybe the farmers didn't understand why the space sector was important. So it wasn't really a big thing to them. But five years later, the space sector actually solves for many, many things. So how do we come into the space where we are open to learning and open to the spheres of new careers that are coming up and allowing ourselves to shift with them? So Okay. I think the most important thing is opening a space of dialogue and allowing that things will change. It won't be the same, but we need to work together. So as much as you're a banker, you need a GIS person to tell you the locations of information of where most of the bank access information are. So it's not that you're doing away with the banker, no, you're being open up to the impact of a GIS person in a banking sector. As well as a farmer, in the olden days, my mom used to tell me they used to go outside and look at the weather to determine which season is coming for the crop planting and yielding season. But now I was telling her, Mom, you can actually use Google map of weather forecast to determine and see that. So you see, it's us taking that knowledge and our parents being open that. Time has changed, and we also need to change our shifting mechanism to improve our security. I love that. So if you had a bingo card and you were trying to predict the things that were going to happen in 2024, What was the thing that was not on your 2024 bingo card that actually came to pass? Oh my god, yes. I work in an organization that I went to restructuring, like a change in the organizational structure. And for some reason, I never thought we were going through that shift. And I never saw myself going to a new department. I moved to a new department, taking more tasks. So bingo, that's something I never thought I would do within my lifetime or space of my career. Secondly, I think it's traveling. Last year, I went to Albania. It's one of those countries I never thought I would go to because I was like, who goes to Albania to do what? And when I arrived into that country, I felt like it's in Africa. So, yeah, because they have food like Africa, the weather is nice, and the people there are like Africa. It's more like an African country. So, yeah, those are the two things I never thought I would do or see in 2024. I love those answers. Thank you so much, Stella. It has been just awesome getting to speak with you. I hope that we will continue this dialogue. I am putting a pin in the idea of an Atlantic dialogue. I think that's brilliant and I hope that North Star can be one of the seeds that gets planted to help bring that to fruition. So thank you so much. I know our audience is going to love, hearing. And thank you so much. I really enjoyed the, I'm like, how is one hour gone, but thank you for the wonderful work you're doing. Thank you so much for inviting me for this. Such an honor. I'm really happy with the work you're doing. And I'm. So please to be with your guys today. It's made my day. Thank you, Stella. I'm so happy you've said you've enjoyed the conversation. I've loved this conversation. I wish we had more time, but yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about NorthStar of GIS, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at GISNorthStar. We want to thank our sponsors of the 2024 Homecoming event, our institutional partner ReGrid, and our sponsors New Light Technology, Afrotech, and Black at Work. We'd like to thank our keynotes, Tara Roberts, Linda Harris, Dr. Paulette Hines Brown, and Vernice Miller Travis. We'd like to thank Howard University and the staff at the Interdisciplinary Building and Photography by Imagery by Chioma. We also want to thank our guests for trusting us with their stories. Tara, Linda, Paulette, Christian, Abraham, Jason, Vernice, Stella, Beye, Karen. Nikki, George, Frank, Labdi, Toussaint, Victoria, and the HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Team. And finally, thank you to the North Star team and our wonderful volunteers. We are your hosts of the Season 2 of the North Staggers Podcast, which is based on the 2024 Homecoming Conference event. Thanks for listening to the North Star Gaze, intimate stories from geoluminaries. If you're inspired to advance racial justice in geofields, please share this podcast with other listeners in your community. The intro and outro are produced by Organized Sound Productions with original music created by Kid Bodega. The North Star Gaze is produced in large part by donations and sponsorship. To learn more about North Star GIS, Check us out at north star of gis.org and on Facebook or Instagram at GIS North Star. If you'd like to support this podcast and North Star of gis, consider donating at North star of gis.org/donate or to sponsor this podcast, email podcast at north star of gis.org. You've been listening to the North Star Gaze.