Esri and Leica Partner to Offer Grants to Governments

Redlands, California—August 1, 2016—Geographic information system (GIS) provider Esri has partnered with Swiss-based spatial measurement instrument manufacturer Leica Geosystems to encourage innovation of mobile field data collection in government by offering grants totaling $143,250 in goods and services. Known as the Smart Communities Innovation Challenge, 10 governments that submit detailed project proposals demonstrating increased efficiencies in collecting data for decision support or improved productivity in delivering governmental services will be selected to receive a grant.

Project proposals will be accepted from August 15, 2016, until the official submission deadline at 5:00 p.m. (Pacific daylight time) on October 14, 2016. Grant recipients will be announced on October 31.

To be entered for consideration, proposal submissions must be uploaded in conjunction with the organization's identifying information through a form on the Smart Communities Innovation Challenge landing page.

So long as operations are based in the United States, any government or department, whether municipal, regional, special districts, state, city, county, or otherwise, is qualified to receive a grant.

To be selected, it is necessary that a project confirm the value of combining GIS and Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies for data collection, optimizing workloads, and providing real-time information that supports field mobility. Proposal reviewers will look for ideas that support complete workflows extended to back-office processes such as operational dashboards. Priority will be given to projects that tie GIS and GPS to daily workloads, influence sharing of geographically enabled data across multiple jurisdictions or interdepartmental ventures, and clearly convey a perceived benefit or return on investment.

The intent of the joint program is to supply governments with the tools to succeed as they implement progressive methods to streamline workflows. By providing technology, training, and technical support grants, Esri and Leica aim to inspire legislative bodies to devise transformational approaches to improving the efficiency of mobile fieldworkers.

As innovative ideas from the government community are brought forward for solving real-world problems, the best applications will be those of universal appeal and the ability to be shared between governments through an open exchange hub. The challenge's grant winners will be thought-leading governments that have plans in place to jump-start projects such as facility inspections, emergency reporting, asset inventory, environmental management and monitoring, efficient employee routing, code enforcement, population and housing enumeration, mosquito abatement, and/or sign inventory.