Hello ILGISA members!! My name is Sarai Hernandez, a GIS Specialist working for Kendall County. This past June, my team and I had the opportunity to travel to Boston for the State of the Map conference organized by the OpenStreetMap community. From there, we attended a workshop about this organization called Women in GIS. We were drawn to the networking opportunities, mentorship, education and advocacy work that they have to offer.
Since then, there has been increased interest amongst several GIS professionals that we’ve interacted with in Illinois in regards to establishing our own chapter in the region. We also reached out to the organization and even though they are in the process of transitioning committee leadership, they are open to talking with us about an Illinois chapter.
With all of this being said, we would like to make this a discussion/meet-up for this year’s annual conference, but should this be a talk about Women in GIS since they said it will be a couple of weeks or hold off for now and make it a general discussion to those who may be interested?
Thank you for your time!