Esri India: GIS and Academia

Over the years, GIS has moved from being a niche technology into a mainstream platform for Governance and Business Analytics. GIS has also advanced as a strategic business-critical platform in most government programmes. More recently, due to the encouragement from government and positive policy environment governing geospatial data, the adoption of GIS has increased in all the sectors of economy.

Academicians have an important role in transforming the learning, innovation and adoption of technologies like GIS. One of their key responsibilities is to prepare university level students to meet the skill requirements of the country in understanding current level of technology. They are in a unique position to combine GIS technologies with other technologies to drive interdisciplinary collaboration, leading to innovative solutions and breakthroughs. Many academicians are also working as GIS knowledge experts and providing consultancy to government and private organizations in solving critical problems using technologies, including GIS. 

The innovation in GIS, Remote sensing and new technologies like AI, ML, AR, VR, HPC, networking etc. is taking place at an unprecedented speed. These ‘disruptive technologies’ are driving the need for interdisciplinary knowledge and integration. We need to ensure that as a country we prepare our students so that they can compete and excel at a global level and help in addressing the critical problems faced by the world, e.g., those aimed to be addressed through the UN SDGs. GIS leverages on geography to provide us ways to understand what is causing the problems, what needs to be done and where are the interventions required. Not only it is important for university level students to learn the science and applications of GIS, but they must also learn how to use the power of GIS and new disruptive technologies to innovate and advance this science in the country.

The GIS Academia Council of India (GACI), is an initiative to bring together Indian academicians and provide a platform to engage and collaborate to update, strengthen and expand the GIS learning in the country.