Aisha Jenkins Interview_Pt 1

Aisha Jenkins Interview_Pt 1

[00:00:00] 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.

Erica Phillips: Okay. Welcome back to another episode of the North Star Gaze. We are on episode five of the series on Women in GIS. My co-host, Eva Reid, who's the program manager for Geospatial Solutions and Analytics at Dewberry, is back with us. For those who don't know, Dewberry is an architecture, engineering, and construction firm based in Fairfax, Virginia.

Eva brings her 30 years of experience in geospatial technology and data management, along with a vast network of GIS contacts, in part from her role as a leader of the DC chapter of Women in GIS. I'm beyond [00:01:00] delighted because our guest for today is Aisha Jenkins. Aisha is a GIS consultant and project management professional with over 20 years of experience supporting commercial, educational, and international organizations through geospatial strategy, capacity building, and justice-centered technology initiatives.

She currently consults with the International Telecommunication Union, a specialized agency of the United Nations, where she serves as the GIS capacity building expert. She also teaches GIS at Howard University and serves as ethics lead on the Guide to the Geographic Approach, which is a project out of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Beyond her professional work, Aisha is a mom, a co-founder, and former board member of North Star GIS. And most important for me today, Aisha is the creator of the North Star Gaze podcast. There would be no North Star Gaze without Aisha Jenkins. So thank you, Eva, [00:02:00] again for serving as co-host, and thank you so much, Aisha, for agreeing to be part of our series.

There's no voice that we needed to have more than yours. And for listeners, if you've missed any of the episodes on Women in GIS, please go back, take a listen to them. We've had a real powerhouse group of women lend their time and their stories to us for the North Star Gaze. So welcome, Eva. Welcome, Aisha.

Let's jump in. Um, Aisha, when you came up with the idea for the North Star Gaze, what did you have in mind? What was your original vision for this?

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.

Be [00:03:00] 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.

Aisha Jenkins: So the original vision for the North Star Gaze was to create an extended table, right? Because we, we talk about these tables that we're not invited to, the tables where we bring our own chairs.

And really, I just wanted to create this table and essentially carve out this lane that did not exist before North Star came about, right? And it's just, um, Black GIS professionals sharing their stories, their triumphs, their career paths. And really, it was just about diversifying the field of [00:04:00] GIS. And then it's grown into so much more.

It's grown into a tool that I get to use in the classroom. It's grown into a, a, um, examples of different people sharing their stories in their own voices, their unique paths, right? And so it, it just created a, a space where we got to, I guess, exemplify and amplify the variety of Black GIS professionals, uh, and roles that exist within the, uh, the GeoSTEM community.

Erica Phillips: So you were creating a new thing. As somebody who worked in the GIS industry, I saw something missing, and I wanna know what you saw in terms of a gap that this tool and the podcast and the, the organization North Star of GIS could fill. For me, I know when [00:05:00] I went to Esri conferences, I did not see a lot of faces up on the stage that looked like my own.

And I knew that there were people who were doing this work. But what did, what did you see as a gap that needed to be filled?

Aisha Jenkins: I saw not enough of us. When, when we started The Gaze and when we started North Star, we were inside of Esri. And I knew that there was a handful of us that we would see on a regular basis, but I knew that there were so many more, um, s- of, of, of, of all of us, right?

But where were they? Where, where are they toiling? In the bowels of the company, right? What roles are they playing? And so I thought that it was important, at least when, when I got involved with North Star, I remember getting the call from Clinton, and it was just like, "I know people. I know the Black people," because I made it my business to know as many Black people at Esri doing GIS as I could.

And so that was [00:06:00] how, um, we started adding the numbers, right? And so we exist within GIS. We are doing the work of GIS. Whether or not that gets acknowledged, whether or not that gets the gold star to get on somebody's stage, it doesn't, um, diminish the fact that we are here and we exist. And so I thought it was important to, to make that statement.

When I came into GIS, I stumbled upon it as a, a green person who just graduated from grad school. And so what I found was you ascend to the different levels within a company, right? I started as, you know, entry level and just kind of like grew up with the company. And the further up I got, the less of us I saw.

But- I now know, right, that that's by design, right? People cherry-pick who gets to go on a stage. They groom them [00:07:00] specifically for that. And when it got back to, to us, North Star, that it was challenging to work with Black people and Black women in particular to get them stage ready, I said, "Oh, that's because you're gatekeeping that particular stage."

Mm-hmm. But that's not the only stage that can exist, that needs to exist, and that's not the stage that everybody wants to be on. Right? And so we know that there are diverse people with diverse skills, diverse things that they actually want to do. And I know for me, I've never wanted to be on a stage, right?

Okay. And so almost all of the things that I do is behind the scene. I enjoy the operational aspects. I enjoy cheering from the sidelines. I chose podcasting for a specific reason, because you don't have to have a face. Uh-huh. You just need [00:08:00] to have a voice.

Erica Phillips: That's funny,

those of you- ... who cannot see Iesha's face, it's a very pretty, it's a very pretty face. So, and it's so funny because you've had such a leadership role in North Star, it's hard for me to imagine you not in the forefront, right? So I'm, I'm like, "Wait, what?" This is- But- ... this is new for me.

Aisha Jenkins: But notice- So, in this

Erica-

... If you, if you really, really think about it, I'm rarely the face of North Star.

Erica Phillips: Mm. We're gonna keep talking about that as we go through this interview. So I think it was last week or the week before, it was pointed out that we have 50 episodes of this podcast in the can now. And if you think about where it is today, I think you have every reason to be taking victory laps and, um-

saying, ... " I've done a thing." But what makes you proud when you think about the North Star Gaze?

Aisha Jenkins: So what makes me proud [00:09:00] is that I started something with the faith of a mustard seed, right? And it was really, um, with hesitance that I said, "I think we can do this." And each step of the way when it got too big for me, I knew that it had to be built in a way that could be handed off.

And so if I did it right, in my head I could hand it off and then ease away from being the center of the work. It's always been a challenge to build something and then to watch it grow, right? I'm good at building. I'm never gonna be the one to take something from birth all the way to the end of its life.

I will watch it get there, but I won't be the one. I understand the capacity that I have. I can motivate, I can ignite that fire, and I can create a proof of concept, and that's what season one was about. Right? It was a proof of concept. [00:10:00] Can I do this? Can I do this with the team that we have, with the, the limited resources that we have?

Can I actually execute this and execute it in a way that I can hand it off? And so even as I was working through that first season, I'm thinking, "How do I hand this off?" And so then that's where season two came in.

Erica Phillips: Yeah. You really had a process in place. Um, I- it's interesting to hear what your vision was then because, um, it's a lot of work.

It is. And, um, i- it's a lot of, it's a lot of work. Um, i- if you were starting it today, what would you do differently, if anything?

Aisha Jenkins: You know, I thought about that, and

I'm not sure that I would've done too much differently. It would've taken a lot [00:11:00] more blood, sweat, and tears than I had to give. Like, the way you've expanded it, you've gone, a year long in terms of production. Um... I tend to, to lean introvert, and so when I'm out and I'm on, it drains my social battery, and so I can only have it for a finite period of time.

So I know I have to have clear starts and clear ends. I need boundaries, otherwise , I will lose myself, right? Physically, mentally, I will lose myself. So I knew that if I were going to do this, I needed to have a clear start and a clear finish, and I, so I knew when, where my off-ramp was and where I could recharge.

And so that meant I gave myself from homecoming to whatever date we picked, I was going to make sure I had the energy to get there. So we had from November to early March. Whatever episodes we got during that time, we [00:12:00] got. I also created, the original vision was to have the podcast, um, complement the North Star Homecoming event.

Because I knew if I were going to start this, it was gonna be one person, and even if I had other people come on board, I would've had the most knowledge, so I would've been carrying a, a lot of the load. And so I needed to already have good audio. Right? And so we had it at the homecoming event. I would've already needed to have, speakers and guests identified.

We did that, right? I had a list of questions, right? And so a one-person show meant that it had to be really structured, and you can see that structure kinda throughout the season one where the questions were the same, right? There were some differences for the guests, but the questions were the same standard, right?

So, that's how I was [00:13:00] able to, to execute that. But I needed to have people who had some skills, right, just, just to kinda help me out. But I was gonna execute it one step after the other, and so that's what I did. But in order to set up the ecosystem for the podcast, there are pieces that needed to be in place, and that's when I called you in.

I pulled, , from some of the clippings, and B-roll from the homecoming event itself and incorporated that in. Because in order to get the podcast even in circulation, you have to have a few key elements, and so we needed to get those things in place. We were heading into the holiday season.

I'm like, "Erica, I need your voice." And we got, um, as much of the team as we could to lend their voices. That way it was a body of work that represented the people who were the heart of North Star at the time. And so I really wanted to capture [00:14:00] that in history, and so that continues on.

Erica Phillips: Well, thank you for that.

Eva Reid: I really appreciated what you said about, um, being an introvert and finding ways to make something possible. I was recently doing a webinar about, um, presentations and how as an introvert do you give a presentation and not, you know, completely be exhausted for the rest of the conference or, you know, wherever you are, whatever you're doing?

And, uh, you made two comments that I really appreciated and, and I, hopefully I'm summing these up correctly, but I, I feel like what I heard you say was, you know, really protecting your time and protecting your space. And then also you mentioned, and this is a little, maybe a little bit less about introversion, but, you know, just to get something done you need to have a team.

I really [00:15:00] just, I, that resonated for me really deeply because again, I, I was talking about, you know, how do you do this thing that is so completely extroverted where you have to give all this energy, and then how do you find a way to do it without kinda harming yourself, I guess, is, is the way I would describe it.

I just really appreciated you saying that, so thank you.

Aisha Jenkins: And to your point, it did burn me out-

Eva Reid: Fair ... very. Fair. Mm-hmm. Fair. No, and I think- I think it's good that you explicitly said that, because that is where we can end up.

Aisha Jenkins: Mm-hmm.

Eva Reid: And, um, that is, that is a, that is a consequence.

Aisha Jenkins: Yeah.

Eva Reid: I wanted to switch tacks a little bit here and ask you about the work that you do outside of North Star Gaze.

And, um, you know, if I go to your LinkedIn page, um, I see that you are a justice-centered geospatial [00:16:00] capacity building person. Can you tell us what that means in practice?

Aisha Jenkins: Oh, okay. So I am all over the place right now. I am everywhere, but I, I also think it's like the genie in the bottle, right? And so you finally let the genie out, and then you just get to explore just so many facets of yourself in, in a professional capacity.

And so now when I was at, um, my, my former employer, a lot of the GIS that we would do, a lot of the GIS that I would see and heard spoken about was very generic. It was very cautious. It was very comforting. And those types of systems, those spaces exclude.

Whether by design or by design, they're exclusionary. And so when I started really, really doing [00:17:00] the work of GIS and working, um, outside of, um, a corporation, I started seeing and I started learning and I started understanding a lot more about the nuances. Who gets pushed to the margins? Who gets left out?

And so GIS has always been a tool that could bridge those gaps, but it doesn't happen. So now realizing that it doesn't happen, why doesn't it happen? Those perspectives are not at the table. Those perspectives don't have a voice. And so as I got to a point in my career where I was burning out, and I think I was burning out from boredom, I outgrew where I was.

You know, I just needed to do something that had more of an impact. And so I [00:18:00] wanted to be in places where those voices that were not at the table, I wanted to be where they are. And so every step that I took on my way out the door was a step closer to being where the need was the most, where my impact could be the greatest, right?

And so doing the North Star Gaze created a space that did not exist. When people said that they could not find Black people who were interested in GIS, I'm like, "I know exactly where they are. Shame on you for not knowing." And I went directly into those spaces. I went into HBCUs. I got closer with the, um, HBCU, historically Black colleges and university, professors who were in my general region, right?

There are about four or five, right, who are also core mainstays in North Star. So I got to know those people a bit more. And then I wanted to do work that was [00:19:00] going to balance the scales and get more of those voices at the table. And so if big corporations could not find those people, it's just will meeting way.

They never seemed to meet, or it was never a priority. And so for me, it is a priority. It is something that after going through almost 20 years in GIS and still looking for people who look like me, who are actually touching the technology, right? So there's a difference between, you know, corporations and seeing people who look like me.

I see them every day. Seeing people who look like me who are touching the technology, totally different ballgame because they potentially have a seat at the table. And so I wanted to position myself to be where those people are. So I got pulled into HBCU environment. Um, and it's just I knew what was gonna happen once I got there, right?

And it's just Like, these are really [00:20:00] bright young people. GIS is... I tell, I, I would tell them, "GIS is a stupid software. You, you, you, you, you, each one of you, you bring that logic, you bring that knowledge, you bring that application to the GIS, and then you can click some buttons, create some maps," right?

And so it is just a matter of positioning GIS as something that's for you, something that's for me, something that's for Erica. And you have to care enough to want to do that, and you have to humble yourself enough to say, "This is what's missing. Let's go out there and get it." But I think what stands in the way is that, that hubris, that, "Of course I know.

I know how to solve this problem." You don't Right? There's [00:21:00] always this tension, um, between Black and white. Like, I don't wanna say the wrong thing. So you could see that entire group of kids know that they would excel in GIS, but you're hesitant to take that step because you're afraid of getting it wrong and saying the wrong thing, right?

Eva Reid: Yeah. I'm hearing, something that I've always sort of talked about. Uh, you know, I, I used to say, I used to teach folks how to, I, I should say, use GIS. So I would always tell people, "Look, I can teach anyone to press the buttons, but what I'm really wanna do is, you know, get your, your information, your ideas, and I wanna bring your ideas together with the GIS.

So let's talk about what you can do with the GIS, not, you know, yes, I learned how to do this particular thing or that particular thing." Um, so [00:22:00] I, I really, yeah, I recognize what you're talking about. I, I think, too, I would love to hear, um, you've talked about the people and, and connecting with the community, and I was wondering if you could give us some examples of the kind of work that you have now come across or engaged with

Do you have some examples that you can share?

Aisha Jenkins: Yes. So first, I wanna, I wanna take a step back. It- a very funny moment that when you, when you do a career pivot after 25 years, you're like, "What do I do next?" Mm-hmm. And then the, you know, the, the world is like, "What are we gonna do with you?"

Right? And so then as you're looking for different projects and different, your next role, it is very hard to, to reach out to people because they're like, "Well, you're here. You don't need help." Or, and you're just like, "Yes, I do." Like, you know. And [00:23:00] so, I had to, to take a step back, because I can't just do any job, right?

Because if I send a resume, I'm overqualified for just about, everything, and it's just like, we, we can't do this. And so I had to, to, to, to finally get comfortable and position myself as , a thought leader, and I had to fully embody that. So now, with that framing, I can't do just anything, right?

The expectation is higher. When people look at my resume, the expectation is higher, and I really had to, to, to get there. So the things that I'm doing now- So as I go into the classrooms and I'm, I'm talking to these young people about GIS, I have to make it meaningful. What are some challenges you see in your own career, in your day-to-day life, in, the public arena that you'd like to attack?

And then empower them to do that, right? [00:24:00] Um, I've gone through six semesters of final projects. I am blown away. And I mean, I experienced this when I used to teach GIS in the professional technical classroom, ... to have the time to go that deep, right? I, I came from GIS IT. These young people are coming from bringing data science to GIS.

The amount of knowledge you have to have to be able to slice and dice this GIS data, bring it together, join it together, and create these maps with these statistical analysis, I could never. And so I watched them and I'm I'm just like, "Oh my gosh. I don't even, I don't even know what to say.

So I look at it from the perspective, all right, now I just go technical GIS. Okay, it's your maps, your story map. Did you share the link? Because I'm [00:25:00] so blown away and I'm speechless. And so, that's one of the things. When I think of, you know, justice-centered, righting the scale, empowering those young people with the tools to do what they already know how to do and take it to the next level.

Now, stumbled upon, um, another project that has taken me into, onto the African continent. Now, if you know anything about me, the same thing with building this podcast, I didn't just build the podcast, but the people I brought on, I wanted to give them that skill as well, right? And so Erica and I we spent months leading up to, Erica taking over the, the helm, where we were, we were doing deep dives into the technology that's involved, you know, the structure.

You know, because then that's my gift to the world, right? Now you have somebody who can go and do and catch the fish, right? I'm just not feeding you. And so, [00:26:00] okay, so now I'm on the African continent. I get to pick and choose the roles and the projects that I now do. And so I stumbled upon a project. I was like, "Okay, yeah, sure.

It's got GIS. Let me apply." But once I, I heard what the project was and the scope of the project was to, um, to centralize GIS. And not only to centralize GIS, but- To support these countries in building out their own GIS. Support, not tell, not feed, not give. Support. That means those people are sending contingents of representatives to GIS training, where they now have to go take the training, learn the skills, and then go execute in a very real way, in a very measurable way.

This is not like, "No bleeds, oblige. We're coming [00:27:00] in. We're flying in. You need this. We're gonna spoon-feed it to you. We're going to set this up for you and leave you essentially crippled with being able to maintain that and being able to take what you've learned and train the trainer." Right? And so in my mind, ideally, what I would love to see happen is that we have these skills now, and we're going to go...

You know, somebody might infect somebody else with the skills, and they might go into a classroom. They might go into a community center, right? And so, and this is how you grow capacity. So that's where the capacity building comes into play. The, knowledge doesn't just stay with me. The skills doesn't just stay with me, right?

We are encouraging, and you know, part of my role is to encourage that because I get to have formal conversations as well as informal conversations, and it's through connecting with people. One of the things I like about the podcast is being able to [00:28:00] connect with people. One of the ways I get over being an introvert is that I have a mindfulness practice that if I'm going to exert that energy to be there, I'm gonna be hyper-focused on you, that event, and then that's what draws people and connects people.

So then that makes it easier, that makes them more pliable to do this knowledge exchange, to do this skills exchange, right? And so each one, teach one. And so, so I love the work that I am doing now. And the other project is just a curriculum, um, part of a curriculum team, building a curriculum for the next generation of GIS professionals.

And I'm just like, I could not have written a better, more diverse script. In what world do I get to sit in rooms where policy is being made? In what world do I get to sit with young people who look like me and introducing [00:29:00] them to GIS? In what dream scenario do I get to lay the groundwork for being the voice and the head of the next generation of GIS professionals?

And so when they say that everything you want is on the other side of fear, after a 25-year career and burning out and not knowing what comes next- Everything you want comes on the other side of fear.

Erica Phillips: Okay. We're going to do something we've never done on the North Star Gaze before. I don't know if you could tell, but we had so much interesting information from Aisha and such an interesting dialogue that I didn't think it was fair to not let you hear all of it. So if you wanna hear the rest of this fascinating interview, come back in two weeks and you'll get to hear part two of our interview with Aisha Jenkins, the founder of the North Star Gaze

[00:30:00] Thanks for listening to The North Star Gaze, Intimate Stories from Geo Luminaries. If you're inspired to advance racial justice in geo fields, 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.

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