Esri Brings GIS to Young Developers for National Day of Civic Hacking

Redlands, California—June 3, 2016—Esri, the world's leading supplier of GIS technology, will be on hand to support Hopeworks 'N Camden's Promise Zone National Day of Civic Hacking in Camden, New Jersey, on Saturday, June 4, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The hackathon will help promising young developers in the Camden area learn software development and interactive mapping to expose data to the public and create smarter, more connected communities.

President Obama designated Camden a "Promise Zone" after it was found to be the poorest city in the United States by the US Census Bureau in 2013. Promise Zones are areas where federal government and local leaders band together to increase economic activity and improve educational opportunities. The hackathon continues in the spirit of that designation, bringing together representatives from Camden mayor Dana L. Redd's office, the US Housing and Urban Development office, and New Jersey American Water, as well as representatives from Esri. All will be on hand to support Hopeworks, a nonprofit organization that provides software training and support to people aged 14–23.

"We're looking forward to collaborating with Esri and our other partners at this event," said Dan Rhoton, executive director of Hopeworks. "By creating story maps to visualize the Promise Zone open datasets, we can continue to provide necessary job skills training to our students and unique and meaningful apps to our community."

National Day of Civic Hacking is a nationwide day of action in which developers, government and nonprofit employees, software designers journalists, data scientists, , residents, and participants who care about their communities come together to host civic tech events that take advantage of their skills to help the community.

"Esri is thrilled to bring geospatial awareness to civic hacking for such a good cause," said Allen Carroll, Esri Story Maps team lead. "We'll be on-site to provide assistance to Hopeworks' teams and look forward to seeing what great story maps they create."