July 15, 2009
Redlands, California—The City of Oakland, California received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award today at the 2009 ESRI International User Conference (ESRI UC) in San Diego, California. The city received this honor for its vision, leadership, and innovative use of ESRI's geographic information system (GIS) technology. The City of Oakland was selected from more than 300,000 organizations worldwide and recognized during today's SAG awards ceremony for making extraordinary contributions to our global society.
Over the past six years, the City of Oakland has been building its GIS program. The city's department of information technology was tasked with the responsibility of creating a robust enterprise GIS in order to handle the diversity of data, workflows, applications, and systems that would be built as the GIS initiative grew and adopters increased. The city’s early needs relied heavily on desktop users and data creation. However, the current system has evolved to being focused on delivering GIS functionality via the Web.
GIS has helped the city deliver valuable information to customers—its Capital Improvement Project (CIP) application is one example. Previously, users were only able to view project information in a tabular or PDF based view. By introducing mapping and geocoding services, projects are visually displayed in the map and users can search for project information based on the address and radius they enter. It is an efficient tool for the city to reveal project information to the public. As the city continues to grow, its goal is to offer city staff and Oakland residents the opportunity to be both consumers and creators of geographic data.
"Our world is being challenged by rapid change," says Jack Dangermond, ESRI president. "GIS technology is increasingly being deployed as a way to understand the issues facing our society. At ESRI, we are always extremely impressed with the work of our users and want to recognize their efforts with our Special Achievement in GIS Award. Their work is a great example of using GIS to improve our world."
GIS combines computer hardware, software, and data to collect, manage, and analyze geographic information. Virtually any information can be linked to a geographic location, helping people to see that information as part of a complete picture. With GIS, users can view relationships, processes, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts. Whether they are selecting routes to transport ethanol, or studying landslides, GIS helps them see how the world works and changes. More than one million people across the globe rely on GIS to solve problems and make better decisions by thinking and planning geographically.
Other organizations being honored at the ESRI UC include Artesia Water Company, Montana State Library, NASA Langley Research Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Yosemite National Park, City of Madrid, DHL Express, Polytechnic of Namibia, Victoria Police in Australia, and the Grammar School at Leeds.
To learn more about the 2009 SAG Award winners and to view their photos and project descriptions and images, visit www.esri.com/sag. More information about ESRI and its GIS solutions can be found at www.esri.com.
# # #
About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically.
The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including
each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of
Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more
than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's
mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for
desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.
ESRI, the ESRI globe logo, GIS by ESRI, ArcGIS, www.esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of ESRI in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.
Press Information:
Contact: Aly Lawson, ESRI
Tel.: 909-793-2853, extension 1-2337
E-mail: press@esri.com
Images Available upon Request
