The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) hosted the 2024 GeoResilience Summit at the Jackson Center this Thursday, April 04, in collaboration with GEOHuntsville, a local nonprofit.

The event included geospatial intelligence panels, a career fair, and networking opportunities for geo-imaging and intelligence professionals.

The event ended with a presentation of $3K in GEOHuntsville scholarships to local students.

Panel discussion topics included how GIS developments strengthen the nation’s resilience, how geo-intelligence can map changes in human health, roles in disaster response and climate change, expanding into outer space, and the benefits of STEM education in geospatial careers.

Jo-Ellen Adkins, Deputy Director of the NGA Human Development Directorate, explained that Huntsville presence and talent acquisition is an ever-growing priority for the agency because of its defense interests.

“It’s a huge mission. This makes sense for all of those purposes because if you need research and development, where are you going to go? A place like this,” Adkins said.

Adkins said she sees the relationship between Huntsville and NGA continuing to grow as they are drawn to Huntsville by community and networking events as well as all the high-performing high schools, colleges, universities, and technical schools in the area.

Adkins also credited Mayor Tommy Battle and City government with making Huntsville appealing to the agency.

“Mayor Battle sounds like he’s really into this. He’s really trying to push this. Why would you not want to be a part of that when you’ve got people here who are dedicated to the research and development, that want to come up with those solutions, that are in that same solution space that you are…and try and nurture that kind of ecosystem,” Adkins remarked.

Maren Barney of NGA Public Affairs explained that NGA offers three types of scholarships.

The DoD SMART Scholarships supports undergraduate, master, and doctoral students studying one of 34 STEM disciplines, which guarantees NGA employment upon graduation. The Stokes Scholarships focuses on recruiting high school students pursuing undergraduate STEM degrees in critical mission areas. Finally, NGA offers the Undergraduate Stokes Scholarships, which comes with a 10-week NGA summer internship for all recipients.

GEOHuntsville president David Lucas described a long history of geo-intelligence in Huntsville since operation paperclip moved German scientists to Huntsville.

“Before we put man in space, we were collecting a lot of data about the planet and obviously the solar system. But all that started getting translated into, ‘Well, we could do other things with this than just space exploration.’ And so Huntsville grew a very deep legacy on both the NASA side and Earth imaging/Earth observation,” Lucas said.

Lucas also described the scholarships as a “meaningful sacrifice” for the organization as it is completely volunteer-run. Lucas said that scholarships like those are ones GEOHuntsville is happy to make, especially in lowering barriers to entry into college for high school students though their traditional focus was on college students.

“It’s not just Alabama School for Cyber Technology, Science, and Engineering. Even before that, we had great schools locally, public schools like Bob Jones and Huntsville and Grissom and others that we realized you had kids already knowing they wanted to be in this space.”

In his closing keynote address, Battle spoke of highly of the summit with high hopes for the students present, noting that as accomplished as they are, they certainly haven’t peaked.

“We’re very proud to be able to do something like this because of the basis of this is that each of us learn something about it and as we learn something, we get a little bit better…you’re not at the pinnacle of your learning time; you’re at the start of your learning time, and right now you are putting in the basics of the foundation of your learning process,” concluded Mayor Battle.

The event attracted many high school and college students with a passion for geospatial sciences prompting well-informed questions for panelists and in-depth discussions with recruiters from NGA, FBI, and more.