Jeddah Municipality Receives Special Achievement Award for Exceptional Use of GIS Technology:

Publishing Date: 18 July 2009

San Diego, California-July 15, 2009- Jeddah Municipality, Saudi Arabia, received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award today at the 2009 ESRI International User Conference (ESRI UC) in San Diego, California. The municipality received this honor for its vision, leadership, and innovative use of ESRI's geographic information system (GIS) technology. The municipality 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.

Jeddah Municipality developed a GIS to support its commitment to implementing a Local Urban Observatory for Jeddah Province-the Jeddah Urban Observatory (JUO). The objectives of the observatory are to provide the municipality with a method of tracking urban development processes and related properties. The GIS is being used as a valuable tool to identify trends and evaluate policy performance. According to the municipality, the JUO GIS functions to simplify, quantify, and communicate urban indicators.

The municipality also formed a GIS Center whose mission is to facilitate, coordinate, support, and promote the geographic aspects of the municipality including infrastructure development and the municipality's GIS Data Clearinghouse. The GIS Center also assists municipal departments with developing and maintaining GIS support functions, interacts with external stakeholders, and supports the development of public-private partnerships.

"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 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

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