In May 2021 I launched the first episode of Geospatially Africa from Nigeria with very little idea what I was doing. Three years and 21 episodes later, the podcast has grown into something I'm genuinely proud of - a platform that has hosted conversations with researchers, engineers, and practitioners from across Africa and the world.

Why I Started It

The immediate motivation was simple: I was consuming a lot of geospatial content - podcasts, YouTube channels, conferences - and very little of it reflected the African context I was working in. The tools being discussed were often inaccessible or irrelevant to practitioners in Lagos or Nairobi. The case studies were almost never African. I wanted to change that ratio, even by a small amount.

There is an enormous amount of excellent geospatial work happening in Africa. It just wasn't being amplified the way comparable work in Europe or North America was.

What 21 Episodes Taught Me

Consistency is the hardest part of any independent media project. Life - an MSc, internships, moving countries - competes with a production schedule. The episodes I'm most proud of are the ones that required the most preparation: the Spatial SQL conversation with Matt Forrest, the OpenAerialMap episode with HOT, the Digital Earth Africa platform introduction.

  • The GIS community in Africa is deeply connected internationally - guests consistently led to other guests across the continent
  • Technical topics attract a smaller but more engaged audience than career and community episodes
  • Building a Django-backed website for the podcast was a project in itself - and taught me more about web development than any course did

What's Next

Season 4 is in planning. I want to do more deep-dive technical episodes - bringing in researchers working on specific datasets, methods, and tools - alongside the broader community conversations. If you're doing interesting geospatial work in or about Africa, I'd love to hear from you.