Gaia Resources

29/05/2026

What’s driving the future of open-source enterprise CMS? 🌐

Drew Robinson from our team recently headed across the ditch to Wellington for DrupalSouth 2026. Beyond the great coffee and catching up with old friends, he brought back some major insights on where sustainable, ethical tech is heading:
- Drupal CMS 2.0: The game has changed. The barrier to entry is dropping fast with curated, ready-to-use setups that don't lock you in to blackbox systems.
- AI with a Human Lens: The conversation has shifted from "Will AI replace engineers?" to "How do we use AI to remove friction so humans can focus on the hard problems?"
- Gamifying Accessibility: A massive shoutout to the NZ Government team for their open-source CWAC tool. By publishing site accessibility data openly, they've created a friendly rivalry between departments that is actively driving up web usability for all.

Ultimately, Drew's biggest takeaway wasn't about the software at all. It was about the power of the people making it happen on a global scale through their personal contributions.
Catch the full breakdown, including the latest on Drupal CMS and AI traffic management, over on our blog.

Travelling for a conference is always an outsized experience. New places, new people, new connections, new directions, so much input! So it was with much excitement that I travelled to Wellington New Zealand recently for the Drupal South 2026 conference.

28/05/2026

This Throwback Thursday we're throwing back to 2018: Ground disturbance

Looking back at our archives, in 2018 we were blogging about helping Western Australian mining companies navigate the MRF (Mine Rehabilitation Fund) and AER (Annual Environmental Reporting) by meticulously aligning satellite imagery pixel by pixel.

Fast forward to today, and the tech landscape has shifted rapidly beneath our feet.

Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have revolutionized how we can track ground disturbance. But over the last 20+ years of doing this work, we’ve learned that the flashiest tools fail without good governance. Best practice for disturbance mapping in 2026 requires:
✅ Efficiency: Reviewing the ability for technologies like AI to assist in some aspects of this work,
✅ Human Expertise: Keeping experienced minds in the loop to catch the nuances and provide oversight, and
✅ Operational Integration: Ensuring your data actively interacts with your business workflows, approvals, and permitting etc.

As we said in 2018 - we’ve always been about creating win-win situations that minimize footprints on the land through the use of robust data. While technology changes, expertise and evidence never go out of style.

25/05/2026

How do you translate the United Nations’ 2030 biodiversity targets into practical, on-ground technical solutions? 📊🌿
To celebrate the recent UN International Day for Biodiversity (22 May), we handed the blog over to our resident Consulting Scientist, Gill White. She maps out exactly how Gaia Resources’ environmental projects help us achieve our mission of ‘making the world a better place’. Gill provides some snapshots of how we are doing this at different scales:
Locally: Partnering with WAMSI to provide spatial support and manage multiple databases for the Westport program,
Regionally: Collaborating on the newly launched Pilbara Gateway for the Shared Environmental Analytics Facility (SEAF), allowing industry to model cumulative impacts without compromising raw, commercially sensitive data,
State level: Delivering Western Australia’s open-access biodiversity data platform (Dandjoo), and
Nationally: transforming state datasets through automated pipelines for the federal Australian Biodiversity Data Repository (BDR).
Better data means better decisions for our planet's future. Dive into the full detail in Gill’s blog.

The theme for this year’s United Nations International Day for Biodiversity on 22 May 2026 is ‘Acting locally for global impact’. To celebrate this day, we’ve handed the blog over to Gill White, one of our Consulting Scientists, to reflect on how the environmental data projects we deliver at...

14/05/2026

"Building" is never truly finished.
To keep our MATE framework sharp, our Data Scientist, Gail, recently ran the ruler over its performance compared to Google Gemini’s transcription service. We used a real-world test: our own company strategy meeting.

The findings were fascinating:
➡️ The "Umm" Factor: Both models are great at cleaning up speech, but Google tends to "smooth" uncertainty, sometimes stripping away vital context.
➡️ The Accuracy Gap: In rows where transcription varied, MATE got closest to the human transcribed record 75% of the time.
➡️The Aussie Edge: By using open-source models like WhisperX, we can swap in specialized models to ensure diverse accents and languages are heard correctly.

In the tech-for-good space, transparency matters. Particularly in our work with collections and archival institutions, unintended changes have serious impacts on reliability of the output, surfacing it in search results and even the meaning of the sentences.

Check out the full comparison and see why we’re sticking with our open-source roots.

Life moves pretty fast. So does technology. If you’ve been in tech over the last five years, you know the pace of AI advancement is relentless. At Gaia Resources, we’ve shared our AI journey from fish image detection (2021) and handwriting analysis (2022) to more recently building the MATE frame...

04/05/2026

Happy May the Fourth (or International Star Wars Day for those inclined).

To celebrate this special day in the galactic calendar we got the team together to test our mettle as quiz masters of the Star Wars universe.

There is a bit of a Star Wars v Star Trek split within the business so the quiz also included some Trekkie questions to round out the session.

May the Fourth be with you.

30/04/2026

In just over three weeks Piers will be presenting at the annual Australian Society of Archivists WA Branch Professional Development Day.

If you'd like to register, go to https://archivists.org.au/iCore/Events/Event_display.aspx?EventKey=002WAPDMAY&WebsiteKey=d4c31fa4-467a-4959-b48b-cae3ea93e516
But be quick, registrations end May 19.

We'd love to see you there!!

Information Awareness Week unites industry practitioners across the globe. Notably, this event welcomes all professionals, irrespective of their association memberships, fostering a truly inclusive environment.

22/04/2026

Happy Earth Day 🌏

This year we have made a donation to Earth Day to help support the important work that they do.

We’re also doing our bit for the environment. During our last team week all of our staff were given a reusable tote bag and water bottle. Cutting down on single use plastics and reusing what we already have can really make a difference.
It’s only a small step but it’s part of our commitment to the environment.

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day?
Tell us in the comments what changes you have made for the environment and you could win one of our tote bags and water bottles!!

15/04/2026

In June, Piers, Sarah and Tyler will be heading to Malaysia to attend the South East Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association (SEAPAAVA) conference.

On the agenda
✅ Leading a workshop on Digital Preservation
✅ Sharing our insights on AI in the archival space

Registrations are now open https://seapavaaconference.com/2026-registration/
Let us know in the comments if you are attending, we’d love to see you there!

Join us for the 30th SEAPAVAA Conference! Registration is now open. Please review the following guidelines and fee structures before proceeding to the registration portal.

09/04/2026

They say, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

That’s exactly how we feel about the evolution of MATE (Metadata Annotation and Transcription Engine). Since our prototype launch in recent weeks, our team has been busy demonstrating this tool to the people who matter most: collections specialists with vast experience on the tools.

Their feedback was the "secret sauce" we needed. We’ve spent the last few weeks refining the interface and smoothing out the workflows to make sure MATE isn’t just powerful, but a joy to use. From transcription to access examination, it’s all about empowering the human in the loop.

A huge thanks to everyone who "played" with MATE and helped us make it better!

If you’re interested in seeing the evolution of MATE or getting your first taste of our AI system custom built for collections let us know at [email protected] . Alternatively if you missed our launch of MATE previously you can read more in the original blog post - https://www.gaiaresources.com.au/say-gday-your-new-mate

02/04/2026

Happy 5th "Gaia-versary" 🎉

Our people are super important to us, it's not just a slogan, but something we live every day.

Also we think it's important to celebrate the milestones of life and last month was no exception. It marked 5 years since our fantastic Marketing Coordinator Rachel joined the team here at Gaia Resources.

Some of you may not know this but Rachel has been the voice behind so many of our stories and blogs, ensuring our marketing delivers impact each and every week. To celebrate 5 years, we have asked her to write this week’s blog looking back on her journey at Gaia and what makes the place so special to her.

https://www.gaiaresources.com.au/five-years-gaia

They say time flies when you’re having fun, that’s exactly how it feels after recently celebrating my 5 years at Gaia.I joined the team in March 2021, stepping into the role of Marketing Coordinator.

26/03/2026

This Throwback Thursday we’re looking back to August 2025 when we were exploring the disastrous algal bloom spreading in South Australia.

Behind the scenes we’ve been tracking the situation and thanks to recent reports from March 2026 we have some promising updates:

Most coastal waters are back to seasonal averages (±1ºC).
Stronger-than-average cold-water upwelling is occurring off the Bonney Coast and Eyre Peninsula.
While the Gulfs are stable, we're still seeing increased chlorophyll-a concentrations near Victor Harbor and the mouth of Spencer Gulf.

It’s great to see that some of what we predicted in August is already starting to play out, you can read more on this below

Want to know more about how we use open source spatial data to enable impactful environmental tracking? Send us an email at [email protected]

In recent weeks we’ve all seen the news regarding South Australia’s (SA) disastrous Karenia mikimotoi algal bloom (link,