Esri: Promoting spatial thinking among people

Using geospatial technologies to combat the multifaceted challenges is the need of the hour and Esri India Technologies Pvt Ltd (Environmental Systems Research Institute), being a leader in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology has been promoting GIS adoption not only in governments and businesses but also in academia and by delivering cutting-edge GIS solutions powered by ArcGIS, to more than 5,000 customers, Esri, an, end-to-end Geographic Information Systems (GIS) solutions provider it has been playing an important role in maintaining the environment through its successful eco-friendly practices and propagating information among people who can contribute to the ecosystem.

"With technologies like GIS that serve as the backbone for location intelligence and infrastructure becoming more popular, companies are joining the quest for deeper knowledge. As a leader in the field of GIS, we, at Esri India, are taking multiple initiatives to create market skills and knowledge," says Agendra Kumar, Managing Director of Esri India. Its applications are designed to conserve the ecosystem in areas such as land management, utilities, water, infrastructure, disaster management, telecommunications, urban development and several more.

The Innovation Hub (iHub) at Esri India was established with the aim of providing facilities to nurture new eco-friendly ideas and help develop new solutions for customers while enabling them in achieving excellence in business welcomes visitors from across the country. It brings together all the research and development teams to work with innovative and advance technologies including sensor monitoring, Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT).

"The team of innovation hub also works closely with Esri India partner ecosystem and helps them in demonstrating and developing their concept and solutions in real world scenario with excellence and practical user experience," says Agendra Kumar.

"Innovation Hub also provides infrastructure of open data gateway along with Esri Managed Cloud Services (EMCS) division for many customers to access and use localised contents. It enables Esri India to collaborate closely with customers to understand requirements, develop and deliver innovative solutions for their businesses" he expressed.

"As the Indian Economy leaps from one pillar of strength to the other, geospatial technology is becoming more prominent. Geospatial literacy is a key to solving the challenges the country is facing today and thus the need to develop the right talent is paramount," says Agendra Kumar, while focusing on the importance of geospatial technology in our country.

Today's world and young students in India are increasingly using the geographic approach to solving real-life problems. Spatial thinking has been fast becoming extremely relevant - "Be it inculcating GIS skills in students at the university level or empowering the developers with the right tools to incorporate location intelligence in businesses, Esri India is a very good platform for people who want to acquire these skills," says Agendra Kumar.

Esri India Young Scholar Contest has been one of the platforms for students to not only strengthen their GIS skills and be industry-ready, but also is an opportunity to showcase their work at India and International levels.This year in April 2022, the Indian GIS student community presented phenomenal solutions for some of India's most pressing problems such as air pollution, healthcare, land degradation, deforestation and many more topics, as part of the Esri India Young Scholar Contest 2022.

Close to 200 students from across the country participated in the contest and showcased interesting projects right from the application of GIS in reducing health inequity among the underserved, analysing social media data to improve citizen services, assessment of groundwater level variation and other topics.

"The Esri India Young Scholar contest is one among many of Esri India's efforts to encourage and acknowledge the out-of-the-box innovations by young scholars. Our aim is to provide this platform to students to develop geographic and spatial thinking and apply GIS technology to solve real-life problems," says Agendra.

After a thorough review of Esri India's expert technical team, top three winners were selected for their unique ideas, under the EsriIndia Young Scholar Contest 2022. The first project was based on 'using Twitter data to assess commuters' perception of the Delhi Metro' by ApoorvAgarwal,student of IIT Madras, the second project being 'analysing the access to educational facilities in Dahod district' by Yash Doshi from CEPT University and the third project was on 'Automatic ridge line detection using digital elevation modelling' by Kalyan Nath Somavarapu studying at National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj.

"Apart from becoming a proud recipient of the 'Esri India Scholar of the Year' trophy, the top winner will get the opportunity to showcase his/her work at the global level at the Esri International User Conference which will be held in San Diego in July 2022. This will be a unique opportunity for the winner to network and learn from like-minded scholars from around the world," says Agendra Kumar.

Abiding by the promise to safeguard natural resources by adopting eco-friendly practises, Esri has successfully made its position in the list of best companies. The organisation aims to continue its practises to preserve the nature and maintain harmony in the country.