GIS Solutions commends GIS users for winning Esri awards

• Accolade for for improving social, environmental, and economic outcomes

Every year Esri recognises outstanding users from around the world that have used GIS in an exceptional way. The awards are the President’s Award, the Enterprise GIS Award, Making a Difference Award and the Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award. GIS solutions (GISS) congratulated this year’s winners for their achievement in being industry trailblazers. 

ArcGIS is a mapping and spatial analytics software that is used by more than 350,000 organisations globally and in over 200,000 institutions, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities.

During its 41st annual User Conference (held virtually for the second year in a row due to COVID with more than 70,000 attendees), Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, announced the recipients of the prestigious President’s Award, Enterprise GIS Award and Making a Difference Award. All award recipients were extoled for creating a more sustainable and equitable future by improving their communications, communities, and environments through the use of geospatial technology.

Esri’s Founder and President Jack Dangermond said that the current awardees had demonstrated how geospatial technology could transform operations and research that led to better decision-making and outcomes. 

Award recipients for 2021 included:

President’s Award: The University of Michigan was recognised for being a model for the higher education community in how to become a true geospatial university. 

Enterprise GIS Award: The Louisville/Jefferson County Information Consortium (LOJIC) was recognised for bringing together decision makers to understand the interconnection of systems within their region and share data and applications across 1,300 spatial databases. The four partners that comprise LOJIC have leveraged GIS for office applications, field work, asset management, citizen engagement, emergency response and fair and equitable property assessments, thus identifying GIS as critical infrastructure to their operations.

Making a Difference Award: Nespresso was recognised for its dedication to ensure quality, productivity, and social and environmental sustainability in coffee sourcing. The company also announced growth for 2020 despite global challenges, proving that smart, data-driven companies can both do well economically and do good for the environment and society.

Esri also presented SJI with Esri’s Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award. Selected from over 300,000 eligible candidates, SJI received the award for its innovative use of mapping and analytics technology, as well as leadership in the utility industry.

Though there were no Sri Lankan winners this year there have been winners in years past. The Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority won a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) award in 2018, Integrated Road Investment Program (iRoad) won a SAG award in 2017, Survey Department of Sri Lanka won a SAG award in 2016 and the Irrigation Department of Sri Lanka won a SAG award in 2015. 

The SAG Awards are intended to demonstrate an appreciation for organisations using GIS to understand complex data and meet challenges around the world. The users honoured with awards are demonstrating all the groundbreaking possibilities of GIS software. GIS solutions is very proud of the partnerships that have led to these projects being recognised by Esri and hopes to see more representation by Sri Lankan organisations in the future. 

“Meeting our users in person is part of what makes Esri UC so special to me and everyone I work with, but the health of participants is paramount,” said Dangermond. “As always, I am honoured to present these awards to all the organisations recognised for the bold examples they set applying geospatial technologies to their important work in the government, business, and nonprofit sectors.”

GIS Solutions (GISS) is the sole authorised distributor in Sri Lanka for Esri, the developer of the ArcGIS software platform. GISS is a 100% Sri Lankan company that has led this specialised technology market by locally developing solutions based on the ArcGIS software platform catering to local user needs. The company has expanded the technology from ArcGIS being just a mapping tool to a fully-fledged decision support, monitoring and collaboration tool and propagated its use. GIS solutions employs some of the best local GIS graduates, and provides training and technical support locally.