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 geoluminaries. I am sitting here with Toussaint Kirk, who just presented at the 2024 Homecoming event. Tell me, Toussaint, why was it important for you to participate in the Homecoming this year? I thought it was a great opportunity for me to get experience and hear other stories and hear about how other people use GIS other than myself and what I've experienced. Hopefully I can connect and network with some people to figure out how can we combine our experiences together to push forward whatever issues need a solution. How did you initially get involved in GIS? Just being at Northstar, I was introduced to it when I needed to use it for one of my projects, but also Northstar themselves. Wanted to see all the different ways that they could benefit from using the tool of GIS. Working at my, uh, other internship, working at ConocoPhillips, which is an oil and gas, and seeing how they use GIS, and they used it for drones to help map out maintenance schedules for those drones. Over time, just learning more and more as I've been introduced to it. That's how I get into it, just through interning in my work experience. I'm really happy to hear that. As a board member, we're always looking for ways that we can serve the community. I can see that Northstar has already played a role in your career. How do you think GIS could be used to make the world a better place? I believe that GIS is going to do for the world what, uh, GPS systems did for mapping and direction. I hear stories from my parents and my grandparents about how when they need to travel long distance, they had a big map in the car and they keep it in the glove compartment. I honestly think that GIS is Some of the GPS as is another way to virtually see endless possibilities. Okay, I love it. What does GIS done right look like to you? For those of us who've been in it for a long time, we've seen some evolution and some things change, like even the graphics that we have access to, now they include some people that look like us, but what does GIS done right look like to you? I think that GIS feature that I really liked about GIS is that you can look at the data sets of other people and what they've done, so then you can compare it to what you've done. The great thing that you can do in GIS is overlay information. It allows everybody to highlight different areas of things that they care about, and then also allowing everyone to see those different things as they search it up using the tool within GIS map making. Great. Thank you. How do you interact with the wider GIS community? You're here in the nation's capital. How do you find other people who are working in GIS? Is it through social media? Is it through conferences? How do you network with other GIS professionals? I would say social media is a big component here at Howard. We have a small community of people. And so we can kind of message each other on this small dashboard that relays news and allows people to share maps and things like that. When it comes to social media, if I'm looking for, I'd say pretty good advice for young people. I'm looking for young people and I'm looking for. At least decent advice when it comes to GIS. I'd say Reddit is also a really good platform because you can you can get into a Whole discussion with someone someone can show pictures and videos of things they've done and add a description to that So I think Reddit is a Really good social media tool when it comes to doing that in the less professional realm outside of LinkedIn. I like that. Thank you. So I've got to remember Reddit, right? Because I use LinkedIn. I've got people sending me messages on Insta or IMing me through messenger, but I don't always think about Reddit as a tool for connecting with others. So thank you for sharing that one for me, as well as for listeners to this podcast. We are sitting here on the campus of Howard University, a week and a day ago, there were a lot of people out here on Georgia Avenue and on the quad getting ready to celebrate. And clearly, that's not exactly what happened. How does it feel to you to be sitting here today and to be sitting particularly in this place? You're a student of this university and you are of age to vote. What does it feel like to be here today in particular? I think it's one of those things that when you're older, it's going to really hit you. But I do understand the importance of this time, the former alumni of our school running to be president. Um, of course, but also she served as a vice president as well. So I think it is historic and a couple years down the line, we're, we're going to really just be like, wow, we really. Had a president elect or vice president. I was definitely outside Tuesday night It was a lot of people there a lot of security and it definitely was a different vibe a different feeling It was great. People were out there just having a good time. They're playing the chess slide things like that So we were dancing everything. Yes, ma'am, and it was just great to be in that atmosphere. So definitely surreal Thanks for reminding me. It is still a celebratory moment because Kamala Harris Is someone we can celebrate, right? The outcome of the election doesn't change the fact that she was viable for the highest seat in this nation, right? I'm grateful to you for reminding me that we still have reason to celebrate and to be joyous about what she did accomplish. Tying this back to GIS and place. I'm a person who's worked around data for many years, but there's something you can see differently when you see a map, see where you are in relation to. The wider community or the wider world that you can't see any other way. You mentioned data and analytics, but you can't see data in a tabular form. and have it make the same connections for you as when I see it on a map. The map becomes a communication tool to people who may not even have GIS skills, right? How do you see this technology changing and what do you expect from us in terms of contributions that you'd like to see Black people making in advancing GeoSTEM, especially in this geopolitical environment? What are your expectations of this community? I really expect the community to grow. I think I have a lot of faith just in people as we've historically had shown people come up with great ideas and it could be one random person. They come up with a great idea and it pushes things forward. So I have a lot of faith in people and the people's ideas. I think the biggest thing is we have to get the message out there about what GIS can do to help. Others, introduce more people to GIS and, uh, increase membership in whatever club or organization that users are, are promoted. I'm sure that we'll come up with some great things over time if we get as many minds in on it as possible. Thank you for that. Tell me, I'd like to know a little bit more about you. What are you studying? What career tracks are you considering for yourself? What's ahead for Toussaint Kirk? I'm studying supply chain management at Howard. I would say in the future, the sky's the limit. I can go into any. Industry, it doesn't matter to me. I can go into any part of the supply chain, whether it's procurement or logistics, I've had to work also at the experience of working in the office. So I can see myself being useful in both spaces. I honestly think that whatever is for me will find me in that. No matter where I'll go, I know I will make a positive impact. I hope that I continue to run into great team members and collaborators as I already have, both in my classes and at my jobs and different work opportunities. Fantastic. I can't wait to see where the future takes you. I am expecting you to do great things and we want to support the work that you're going to be doing in the future. I hope you'll continue to be active in North Star of GIS. And as you think of ways that we can better serve younger people like yourselves who are just starting their careers, I hope you will share with us your insights and your perspective. You can see things that we can't see because we're not at that stage in our careers, but. You have insights that we don't have. We don't know everything. Sometimes older people feel like we've got all of the answers, and we don't. So, we want to continue to hear from you, Toussaint, as you make your way into your professional career. What year are you in here at Howard? Uh, this is my senior year. Fantastic. So, in a few months, you're going to be On that stage, taking your final steps here, right? That's exciting. It does my heart good to hear somebody who's in a stage where things are so much more hopeful. There's, the whole world is in front of you and there's so many things that you can do. I think it's going to be exciting to see what you do with your career. Thank you. Let me ask a fun question. If you were thinking about this year and you put together a bingo card of things that might happen, what happened that you did expect and what happened that you did not expect? That is a very good question. I did not expect, uh, Drake and Kendrick Lamar to go back and forth viciously online, leading to Kendrick Lamar now highlighting, uh, you know, the Super Bowl halftime show. That was not on my bingo card. Oh, I did not expect Abbott Elementary to give in to the Janine and Gregory love story so soon. I thought it was going to take another season. Spoiler! Oh, okay, my bad. I thought we had to wait at least another season or two for that one, but yeah, that was definitely surprising this year. Thank you for that. I'm not up to date on Abbott Elementary, but I do love this show. Thank you so much for being a speaker here with the 2024 Homecoming of Northstar GIS. We really appreciate you and, uh, We're grateful to you for doing this work and taking time out of your busy day. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about Northstar of GIS, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at GIS Northstar. 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.