During the last month, we stumbled across a milestone – the first timesheet entry for Gaia Resources was made 19 years ago. That made us all wonder where we’ve come from, and where we’re going to!

Gaia Resources started at a messy little table in my house, where I was trying to find ways to merge my previous careers of wannabe ecologist and GIS data nerd together into some sort of job for life. So, when Rachel asked me for something for our EOFY blog, I started thinking about the last year and then I kept falling down the rabbit hole that is 19 years deep! I think we might have to climb out of that rabbit hole for a while and instead focus on this last financial year, though.

Speaking of a trip down memory lane, here’s some of our team photos from the past

This last year presented us with a solid footing for moving forward for this year.  We are entering into the new year with a number of “repeat” or “extension” projects, especially in the Environmental space. Our environmental knowledge and past work resulted in us being re-engaged to work on two very large and important projects for biodiversity management in Australia – the Biodiversity Information Office (BIO), and the Biodiversity Data Repository (BDR). We’ve spoken about BIO on our blog in the past (like the recent blog on BIO), but I realise we’ve not talked a lot about the BDR.

That project, led by our federal Environment department (the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water) has been something we’ve worked on for a couple of years in the “data partner” role.  In this sense we are the ones that work with data providers to ensure that data can be provided to the BDR’s main repository, and then we run all that data through a detailed pipeline to ensure that it meets the needs of that repository when it gets there. This is really important – the need to access robust, authoritative biodiversity data in a timely manner is a key part of the reforms that are being delivered by this government.  It’s something that we’re proud to be involved with, and we’ll have to explain more about it in the future.

The BDR is a large initiative that can be broken down into an ingestion pipeline (which we manage), and then a repository to store the data

The BDR and BIO have been really positive environmental projects, but in the other part of our business – the Collections side – we have also been delivering on a range of projects, with some milestones coming just around the corner as we push towards a Production release of the Digital Preservation System (DPS) for the Queensland State Archives.  This will be a big milestone – the first time that an integrated DPS will be included in the Archives there – and to get there has been a lot of work by our dedicated team.  I’m really looking forward to seeing that go live – that will be a big part of our wins from this last financial year.

Collections and Environment have been our two focus areas for the last year, and our team has changed around those areas.  We’re also recruiting for more people to come along and help us make a difference – including a range of ads that are out now for particular jobs, too:

Two of our recent job ads that are still live at the time of posting this blog

With these projects continuing into the new year, we’ve got a pretty full book already – so recruitment is going to be continuing, and if you’re at all interested in the positions we talked about in the last recruiting blog, then drop us a line at jobs@archive.gaiaresources.com.au. 

Next year we are celebrating 20 years of Gaia Resources, from that little table in my house to to a team of over 40 spread across Australia (and even some in Europe). Stay tuned for some changes that are coming and make sure to be subscribed to our newsletter.

Right – we better get on with it and start this new financial year then! In the meantime, if you’d like to know more about our coming projects, or about our recruitment then start a conversation with us on social media – LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter or drop us a line.  All our best wishes for the new year ahead, and we look forward to seeing you during it! 

Piers