Prof. Kenichi Soga and Prof. Dimitrios Zekkos were invited as Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the Geoprofessional Business Association's (GBA) Crystal Ball Workshop that was held this week, June 24-25 in Kansas City, Kansas. The topic of the Crystalball workshop was on "Addressing the Impacts of the Shrinking Geoprofessional Workforce with Automation and Artificial Intelligence." Soga and Zekkos were the only SMEs from academia and gave a joint presentation on "Automation Applications in Geotechnical Engineering Practice" highlighting the work that is happening here at Berkeley in the Geosystems program and the Center for Smart Infrastructure. They also participated in the two-day brainstorming sessions that involved geotechnical industry professionals from the USA and Canada. 

The Cyrstal Ball Workshops are held every few years to identify long-term emerging issues and business trends, and their potential impacts on the geoprofessions. Workshops have accurately foreseen consolidation trends in our industry, as well as many of the impacts from demographic and economic shifts that geoprofessionals have experienced.