This past March, Esri, the world leader in mapping technology, announced its first-ever Esri Climate Resilience App Challenge 2014, calling all developers to create an app using the Esri ArcGIS Platform to help communities see, understand, and prepare for climate risks. ICMA helped its long-term Strategic Partner get the word out about the app challenge, and ICMA Executive Board member Jane Brautigam, city manager, Boulder, Colorado, served as a judge for the challenge. 

Board liaison to ICMA’s Sustainability Advisory Committee, Brautigam brought a long-held personal commitment to sustainability and a practitioner’s eye to the competition. “I came to this task [as a judge] with a view toward determining if a city like Boulder could use such an app. From my perspective, apps must be easy to use and highly intuitive,” she said. “These are major international awards, so it was important that we [the judges] selected the right apps.”

Brautigam points out that local governments have so much data available but few resources for mining the data. “This is a very fruitful field, and the right apps can serve local governments and their communities well,” according to Brautigam. “It’s very useful that we can work with the developer to create new tools for better local government management. There are a couple of apps coming out of the Esri Climate Resilience App Challenge that were pretty awesome that I think will be very useful to cities in the future.”

The winning apps will be announced and featured at the Esri International User Conference, where more than 15,000 Esri users come together to share ideas and do their part to transform our world.