arcwatch

Get Ready, Get Set, and Then Go to GIS Day 2019

Where will you be and what will you be doing on Wednesday, November 13? If you are a GIS professional, work with maps on a regular basis, or just love maps and mapping, consider hosting or attending a GIS Day event in your community.

“This day [focuses on] what GIS is and helps educate people about the power of this wonderful tool and how it’s beneficial to people,” says Esri president Jack Dangermond.

This year will mark the 20th annual GIS Day, an international celebration inspired by environmentalist Ralph Nader but supported strongly through the years by organizations such as Esri, the American Association of Geographers (AAG), and the National Geographic Society. In fact, GIS Day always coincides with the National Geographic Society’s Geography Awareness Week, which this year will be held November 10–16.

So what can you do on November 13—or another day that may be more convenient—to show colleagues, students, or the public how GIS technology provides the capabilities to analyze, visualize, manage, and share important information? Here are several ideas:

A group of students participated in a GIS Day program at Kenyatta University in 2018.
Organizers of a GIS Day event in the Northwest Territories taught adults and children about GIS during events at Aurora College, East Three Elementary School and East Three Secondary School in Inuvik.
Students learned about what GIS can do at the GIS Day Fest at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, last year.

To register your upcoming GIS Day event and have it mapped and to download resources such as GIS Day posters, activities, and flyers, visit the GIS Day website. After GIS Day 2019 is history, please return to the site and share with the GIS world the story of what you did!

GIS Day provides inspiration to so many individuals who aspire to be part of the GIS Community. Capitalizing on the enthusiasm of elected officials, executives, co-workers, students, and friends is critical to furthering the momentum. Esri would like to support your local GIS community by providing five ArcGIS for Personal Use licenses to each GIS Day host who registers their event on the Esri website.

Each host can decide how to distribute these five licenses. This could be in the form of drawings, contests, young professionals network activities, as a gift to presenters, donations to nonprofits, or however you wish to further the GIS practice beyond GIS Day. Licenses must be redeemed by January 13, 2020.

About the authors

Carla Wheeler is a former technology writer and editor at Esri and a former newspaper journalist. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and political science. She was the previous editor of ArcWatch and worked with ArcGIS StoryMaps apps. Follow her on Twitter @gisjourno.

Joseph Kerski is a geographer, Esri education manager, and an enthusiastic advocate for all things mapping. “Maps engage, maps inform, maps inspire,” he says. Kerski earned a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Follow @josephkerski.