Listen to the SHIFT podcast which features an interview with Jack Dangermond, founder of esri. He is the President of esri.
From deciding where to build a new business, airport or fire station, to understanding the potential impact of decisions regarding conservation or governance, people make billions of maps everyday using GIS.We explore the history and evolution of this tech with one of its pioneers, in the latest instalment of our oral history project.
He is clear that "geography is everything!"
Find out more here.
A few points that Jack makes:
- Between 4 and 5 billion maps are made on esri's platforms every day.
- GIS digitises geography and puts it into a geographical frame.
- Organisations are run by geography.
- Do analytics of the geography behind the maps.
- GIS tools help frame the decision making they do.
- FEMA and other emergency departments use the tools to plan the response to hazards
- Roger Tomlinson invented the term GIS
- Talks about getting his customers together and working out what they could develop as a product
- esri has 680 000 customers... when they started they had single digit numbers of customers
- A third of revenue is spent on advancing products and R&D
- UPS saved hundreds of millions of dollars from rerouting their vehicles
- Helped with EBOLA
- 1.3 trillion maps were created showing the spread of COVID19 around the world
- "Geography is everything"
