When the White House launched the Opportunity Project in March, the Administration issued a call to action to private industry to help the government get its data into the hands of citizens in a usable way. While opening government data has been a priority for this Administration, there has been a real need for creating tools to help users get their arms around this data and turn information into transformative decisions.
Tomorrow morning, the White House is hosting the “second sprint” for the Opportunity Project, and global smart mapping leader, Esri, has been selected to feature their Opportunity Enabler Tool, which uses a series of nationwide opportunity indexes – Environmental Health Hazard Index, Jobs Proximity Index, Labor Market Index, Low Poverty Index, Low Transportation Cost Index, Location Affordability Index, and School Proficiency Index – and posits them within each of the personas delineated in the Opportunity Project, providing the resources and information contained within these data sets in a visual, easily digestible manner.
Esri will be featured at the event, demoing their apps which collate and present data most necessary for these four personas in easy to understand maps. The four personas and the Esri solutions are:
- Samira – She is a survivor of domestic violence relocating to a new area and Esri created an application where someone of her situation can search an area of the United States for public transportation, police stations, schools, places of worship, grocery stores, parks, primary care facilities, crime statistics, and job proximity.
- Supervisor Miles – He is in the position of a county official in a rural area seeking to attract new business/industries to the area. With this persona, Esri showcases the ability to harness the power of open opportunity data and incorporate that into an application to promote growth in rural areas using ArcGIS Ready-to-Use Spatial Analysis tools.
- Jo – An LGBT youth experiencing homelessness, Esri created an application where someone of that persona has the ability to use geography to find places of public transportation, health care facilities, Wireless hotspots, homeless shelters, affordable housing, and grocery stores. This information will allow someone just like Jo to find access to opportunity and growth.
- Gerald – A formerly incarcerated person reentering society. Esri created an application using open opportunity data to allow someone of Gerald’s situation to search for homeless shelters, public transportation, job proximity, home values, transportation costs, and job training locations. Using this open information, someone like Gerald can find opportunity.
