Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Esri Pledges To Donate $1 Billion In Software For STEM Efforts

Redlands-based geographical information systems (GIS) software developer Esri is putting up $1 billion in its software, to help bolster STEM education, as part of a White House initiative, the company said Tuesday. Esri said it will provide a grant to make its advanced, cloud-based mapping software available to more than 100,000 elementary, middle, and high schools in the United States, for free. Esri said the move is part of the White House ConnectED initiative, which was recently announced by President Barack Obama. Esri is offering up its Amazon, AWS-cloud based software, ArcGIS Online, to all K-12 schools in the United States. ArcGIS is widely used by government agencies and organizations for mapping data. Esri normally charges more than $10,000 for a license to ArcGIS Online.