Esri India, Geographic Information System (GIS) Software & Solutions provider announced its drive to skill over 2 lakh students in GIS technologies in India over the next 3 years.

As per the Government of India’s estimates, the Geospatial Data economy is expected to grow from 30,000 crore to about 1 lakh crore by 2030. Government is encouraging higher usage of GIS technology in many segments like Smart Cities, AMRUT, Water Resources, Agriculture, Insurance, Land management & SVAMITVA, and Utilities. With the new guidelines released by government earlier this year on de-regulating Geospatial data, the use of GIS in private sector is also likely to increase significantly. The increased usage of GIS is likely to create 10 lakh jobs by 2025.

Esri India today announced a campus-wide program to help universities and institutes setup and scale their GIS learning infrastructure by establishing

The Centre of Competence (CoC) will provide an opportunity to the students in various streams to acquire the most advanced GIS technology skills. GIS skills when clubbed with other new emerging technologies like AI/ML, Big Data, 3D, AR/VR, Reality Capture, Data Science, Cloud Computing, etc. can create a strong differentiation and increase employability. This initiative will provide students with knowledge, expertise, best practices, and software infrastructure that can be accessed anytime, anywhere and from any device.

Agendra Kumar, Managing Director, Esri India, said, “With the growing importance of GIS in economic growth, there is a need to increase geospatial literacy in the country. Through this initiative we aim to provide GIS technology to students of all disciplines. For example, a student of supply chain management can learn GIS skills while on campus and later use them in his professional life for monitoring real time status, disruptions, etc. in the entire supply chain process”.