Published on Mar 08, 2021 | Bikesh Bade | 1730 Views

Being a part of Esri for me is like getting involved in what fascinates me. Since my engineering, geographical information system (GIS) has been part of my day-to-day life and work. Adding meaning to the map and see the world from a different perspective has always driven me to do more and learn more. 

In October 2020 in the middle of the Covid 19 pandemic, I joined the ESRI research and development team in the United Arab Emirates. Given the fact that I had graduated as a GIS engineer, taking a job felt excited and nervous at the same time. Born and raised up in a small town in Nepal, always had the desire to fly with freedom in my heart. A wise man once said; those who don't jump will never fly. This job for that jump in my life. when you are really into something, it will find its way to you. Coming back to the product engineer in Esri, I was exploring how spatial information impacts the life and product that required to make spatial information easy and handy. ArcPro became my best friend and partner in crime. With a new level of ideas and information, I was able to manage the satellite imagery, train dummy machine to read the artifacts, process the imagery, and detect the new information. After a month, I got involved in the project: Digital Earth Africa, zest of the project is to enhance the satellite imagery analysis in the tip of a finger in a fraction of a second. This project was to make easy access of the most advanced Sentinel satellites to the people of Africa in a user-friendly and productive way. It has been fantastic to see something you created are being used by hundreds of people. 

Fast forward to six months, Now am able to manage in and out of any satellite imagery and understand the level of details that the image can be analyzed. Naturally, you think it's now the same repetitive task all coming months, but the beauty of working in research and development is, there is always a new challenge knocking at your doorstep. Every challenge leads to wonderful innovation in the end, ignoring how many time you need to bang your head. I have accumulated different skills throughout each project involvement, all of which have allowed me to grow professionally and personally. I’m very confident that given the experience and network I have built within the organization, I will transition into a role that I enjoy, use my in-depth knowledge of the satellite, and skills which I have built into something beautiful innovation one day. Joining the Esri team has been a wonderful and fun ride of life.