Gaia Resources

03/09/2026

This takes us back to 2016 and the very first Australian Society of Archivists (ASA) conference Piers attended.
We’ve always believed that to serve a community, you have to be part of it. We’re not just building tech from the sidelines - some of us are trained archivists working right alongside you on projects.
From presenting at WA PD Days to our team member Sarah recently joining the ASA ACT committee, showing up for our community matters.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll...

27/08/2026

Have you ever thought about the environmental cost of your archive?
We’ve started some investigations into the environmental cost - measured in carbon in this instance - of running an archive that remains paper based, and another that’s been digitised and digitally preserved.
There’s still much more we can do to reduce the environmental cost of many actions and activities we do across many parts of our industries, but we’re hoping that this will start more discussion about the environmental cost of archiving - so get in touch!

When we talk about sustainability and environmental impacts, there are numerous factors to consider: power use, water use, biodiversity impacts and a range of other factors. Many of these are near and dear to our hearts here at Gaia Resources, as much of our work has an environmental focus. While ea...

26/08/2026

Happy International Dog Day 🐕

Today we are celebrating our four legged friends.

Having a dog when working from home has a number of benefits including

🐾 Bringing routine and stability to your day
🐾 Reducing stress and anxiety
🐾 Encouraging mindful breaks and physical movement

So today, International Dog Day, take your dog for an extra long walk or buy them a special treat, they deserve it.

Share a pic of your dog in the comments, we'd love to see them!

19/08/2026

Happy National Science Week! 🧪✨

Science isn't just happening in lab coats behind closed doors, it's actively shaping our cities, our ecosystems, and our future.

Events are happening across Australia this week, The following are just an example of what's on offer

📍 Perth: Biggest Science Lab Ever (Dive into discovery, curiosity and hands on fun)
📍 Queensland: Surveying the Future (Exploring the high value skills and spatial tech driving tomorrow’s cities)
📍 Melbourne: The Power of Geospatial Science - Promise and Peril (A deep dive into the ethics, potential, and real world impact of location data)

Whether you’re passionate about biodiversity, open source data, or the future of tech, there’s an event for everyone, both in person and online. You can find all the details for events in your local area at https://www.scienceweek.net.au/find-events/

What National Science Week event are you planning to attend? Let us know in the comments below!

13/08/2026

For those keeping track, Sunday August 9 marked international co-working day.
As proud members of Hub Australia we have been dedicated co-working fans since 2019 when our previous office was sold.

Over the years we've changed shapes and sizes butthe co-working space has always worked with us to ensure our staff have a home away from home and we have space to collaborate together.
So this ThrowBack Thursday we're celebrating our co-working situation and all it offers to our team

https://archive.gaiaresources.com.au/benefits-co-working/index.html

A while back – before we became a “national company” as my wife likes to remind me – we had our own offices in Leederville (a suburb in Perth, Western Australia). All that changed when the place was sold up, and we had to look for somewhere to move to. I gave our team blank... Continue readi...

12/08/2026

Recently one of our Senior DevOps engineers, Shay, celebrated 10 years with Gaia Resources.
Today he shares a little about his background, how things have changed at Gaia over the last 10 years and some highlights of his time with Gaia

Ten years is a long time in the IT industry.

I arrived at Gaia's Leederville offices in August 2016 having previously worked for various UWA Faculties, State Government, and a couple of startups.

Since I started at Gaia we have
- Moved offices from Leederville to Parmelia House to Elizabeth Quay
- Moved from running our own servers on premise to running everything in the AWS cloud, and now adding client projects in Azure to the mix.
- Become ISO 27001 certified, which as well as annual audits has involved additional software tools and processes to ensure compliance.
- Moved from desktop computers to laptops in a hurry, mainly due to moving all staff from the office to working from home just as COVID quarantines came into effect.
- Begun dealing with the new opportunities and challenges presented by LLM "AI" based technologies (including their impacts scraping customers' web based content)

One of the main highlights has been building the Devops team who (along with the rest of Gaia) kept everything running smoothly while I was dealing with my parents' ill health, for which I am greatly thankful.

Other highlights:
- Passing the initial audit for ISO27001 certification.
- Equipping everyone to work during COVID in a very short timeframe.
- Bringing our largest archival client online.
- Metrogaines, and winning the Star Wars quiz night.

Certainly an eventful 10 years. Given another 10 years I may even be able to convince Piers to use a Mac!

05/08/2026

Every organisation has digital blind spots. Whether you’re running a spatial setup, a digital archive, or a complex environmental data system, it’s easy to get stuck in workflows that were built for yesterday's problems.

Gaia Resources is known for our GIS Health Checks. But here’s a well-kept secret: GIS is just one piece of the puzzle. 🧩

We apply that exact same structured, independent review process across digital archives, environmental data systems, and collections platforms. Why? Because our Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) aren't just tech consultants—they’re former archivists, museum professionals, and environmental scientists who have done the exact job you're doing right now.

Our process evaluates the 5 core pillars of your ecosystem:
1️⃣ People (Always first!)
2️⃣ Process
3️⃣ Data
4️⃣ Software
5️⃣ Hardware

The result is a pragmatic, fixed-cost roadmap to mitigate risk, fix pain points, and help you advocate for funding or tech uplift.

Read the full blog to see which Digital Health Check fits your ecosystem best. 👇

Many people know about the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Health Checks that Gaia Resources offers. What might be a better kept secret is that we apply the same structured review process to digital archives, environmental data systems, and collections management platforms.

30/07/2026

Is your GIS working for you - or against you? 🧭

Throwing it back to a post by Rocio on why regular GIS Health Checks are a game-changer for environmental and resource organizations.
Whether you're managing carbon offset projects like Carbon Neutral or managing biodiversity data, your spatial tools need to be firing on all cylinders. But when spatial workflows get bogged down, decision-making slows down too.

A GIS Health Check isn't just an audit; it’s a check-up across 5 key areas:
👥 People – Are stakeholders aligned and confident?
⚙️ Processes – Is your workflow documented and consistent?
📁 Data – Are you dealing with duplicate layers and messy file structures?
💻 Software – Is your tech stack (like QGIS) the best fit for your budget and goals?
🖥️ Hardware – Do you have the infrastructure to support your team?

Cleaning up these elements means less time wrestling with data and more time driving positive environmental outcomes.

💡 Curious what a health check involves? Read the full article: https://archive.gaiaresources.com.au/gis-organisation-can-identify-pain-points/index.html

Keen on chatting with us about booking in for your own GIS Health Check? Get in touch at [email protected]

🤐 Health Checks don’t just have to be for GIS - keep your eyes peeled for updates in the future on what other spaces where we’re fine-tuning systems, processes, data and people for maximum impact.

I was recently involved in a GIS Health Check for one of our clients, Carbon Neutral, who wanted to get an outside perspective on ways they could improve their data management and spatial software. It was a really rewarding experience on a personal level to explore how another company used spatial i...

16/07/2026

This Throwback Thursday we're throwing back to 2018 when we first launched our online QGIS training on our YouTube channel.

It's been just over 8 years and in that time the video series

💻 has been viewed over 70,000 times
⏱️ has been watched for more than 5,000 hours
🌏 has been viewed in over 94 countries

It's amazing to see the impact that this online video series has had in just 8 years and we hope it continues for many years to come.

*Please note while we are not currently running our in person course, our YouTube series is still available. If you're interested in the online course please email [email protected]

♫ And I like it, I like it… It’s been nearly four months since we released our free Environmental Quantum GIS Training YouTube series (read the original blog post here) and we couldn’t be happier with the uptake and positive response from the public and the environmental community. We’ve r...

15/07/2026

"Biodiversity" is a massive word we throw around a lot in tech and conservation circles. But what does it actually look like when you map it across a continent?

In our latest deep dive, Consulting Scientist Gill White breaks the UN’s definition of biodiversity down into three tangible layers—and how open-source software helps us understand them:

1️⃣ Diversity of Species (Richness vs. Reality): Using open-source data from the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), our team mapped unique species across the country's biogeographic regions (IBRA boundaries).
2️⃣ Genetic Diversity: The hidden variations within a single species that dictate survival—like how traits adapt to changing environments.
3️⃣ Diversity of Ecosystems: The vast web of self-regulating communities. Translating this into tech terms is a massive data challenge—one project mapped over 369,000 distinct ecological facets!

Data is the backbone of modern environmental policy. By using open-source tools and structured data pipelines, we help our clients improve data flow and storage, turning overwhelming numbers into clear pathways for biodiversity protection.
Want to see how these data layers map out across Australia? Read the full technical breakdown on our blog.

In May we celebrated the United Nations International Day for Biological Diversity with a blog about how the environmental projects we deliver at Gaia Resources contribute to the United Nations goals for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.