Esri provided financial support for OpenStreetMap

The American company Esri, a leading producer of geographic information systems, sponsored nonprofit OpenStreetMap Foundation for its development. A company representative explained that the donation to the fund will help to ensure that geographic maps will be available to any person.

The Foundation provides street maps of cities around the world and aims to provide free distribution of the data. Esri made also attempts to give everyone the opportunity to create a complete picture of the world through free maps on the Internet.

The Fund provides access to geospatial data in those regions of the Earth, where we have not enough relevant information to tackle important issues.

A vivid example of the OpenStreetMap work was mapping of Haiti after the earthquake. The project was implemented in a short time thanks to volunteers who, through crowdsourcing created maps of streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince and other cities. High-resolution, portable GPS-receivers were used to create these maps. Prompt action allowed the activists to make vector maps of streets and contributed to the timely assistance for victims, development of the shortest routes to debris, and quick restoration of infrastructure.

Users of Esri products have not only access to maps of the OSM fund, but they can also become an active participant in the community. To do this, use the ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap and upload updated or new information.