Esri’s Billion-dollar Software Pledge: Students Gain Geographic Ground

At the White House Science Fair on 23 March, in conjunction with President Obama’s ConnectED Initiative, Esri announced significant academic progress from its billion-dollar commitment to offer mapping technology to every K-12 school in the United States. Since the programme’s launch on 27 May 2014, more than 1,000 schools have grown their geographic programmes through Esri’s ConnectED pledge.

Along with its software donation, the world leader in geospatial technology has also recently awarded USD140,000 in training grants to teams of educators, and is developing more inquiry-based curriculum for specific subject areas, available as a free download, to help classes and afterschool programmes make the most of geography.

Jack Dangermond, Esri president, said he is extremely encouraged that there has been such a powerful response to the pledge. The sky is the limit in regards to solving problems with geography for the schools that have adopted the ArcGIS Online platform. Esri is humbled to have a part in supporting STEM education across the country, he added.

Esri also announced at the White House Science Fair that it will release a free, open crowdsourcing app designed to empower citizen science later this year. A prototype of the app was used to power a live snapshot of the White House event. The app, which collects tweets from around the globe and continually updates them on a map, helps people discover citizen science in their communities and explore existing resources. Individuals and groups from schools that have enrolled in Esri’s ConnectED efforts to establish an ArcGIS Online account will have access to the app.

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