Esri Australia is giving students from across the country the opportunity to attend what the company calls the world’s largest spatial technology conference – the 2020 Esri User Conference – and network GIS professionals from around the world.
The Esri Young Scholars Award celebrates excellence in geospatial sciences, and is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students studying geospatial disciplines at Australian universities. The organisers note that it is early in the semester, so they encourage students to submit work from the previous university year.
The winning student will be get an all expenses paid trip to San Diego, California, and an all access pass to the 2020 User Conference to be held 13-17 July. The winner will also get the honour of having their work displayed alongside other young scholars from around the world.
They will also have the chance to meet Jack Dangermond – Esri founder and president – when he presents them with the international award.
The full prize prize package includes:
- Flights and accommodation
- All access pass to the Esri User Conference
- Work displayed in the Map Gallery to over 16,000 GIS professionals
- A chance to meet Jack Dangermond
- Networking with Young Scholar award recipients from across the world
- An ArcGIS for Personal Use licence
How to enter
According to Esri, entrants need to submit an exciting project or research paper that uses Esri GIS technology. The submission must include:
- Young Scholars entry (software development/application or report)
- A written response (no more than 500 words) outlining the purpose of the project, its value, and why you should be the Australian Esri Young Scholar
- An image that illustrates the project or report (e.g. map). The image must be 300dpi and a .pdf or .png file
- Proof of current enrolment as a student at an Australian university, in the form of a letter from a lecturer/tutor and a photocopy of the university ID
The competition closes on Tuesday 31st of March at midnight. 2020 competition terms and conditions can be viewed here.
Entries will be judged by a panel of experts representing commercial, government and industry sectors, based on the following criteria:
- Creativity and/or innovation
- Real-world relevancy
- Application of Esri technology
- Technical merit
