BATON ROUGE, LA – November 10, 2020 – Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome announced today the City-Parish will celebrate 2020 International GIS Day on Nov. 18. The event, held annually, will be virtual this year and will feature numerous activities for students, professionals, and the general public throughout the day that build knowledge and showcase GIS technology.

“Our City-Parish’s GIS program is widely recognized as a national leader, with events like our annual celebration of International GIS Day a primary reason why,” said Mayor Broome. “This year’s virtual GIS Day event will yet again put our community’s GIS capabilities on full display, connecting our residents with data and information that helps us better understand our surroundings, improve our daily lives and become more informed members of our Baton Rouge community.”

The 2020 GIS Day event will begin at 8 a.m. with a series of activities for approximately 500 middle and high school students, with the first activity led by the Global Geospatial Institute on how to create story maps based on the birthplaces of U.S. presidents. The second activity will be led by Baton Rouge Green and will feature instructional videos on collecting tree data using the MyTree app.

The event will include speaker sessions from 5:30 – 7 p.m. that are open to the general public and will focus on applications of GIS technology in areas such as responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, managing wetlands, and land loss, and responding to wildfires and other natural disasters.

These evening sessions will also include highlights of the day’s student activities and five attendees will be randomly selected to receive a free ArcGIS for Personal Use License, courtesy of Esri, the global leader in location intelligence.

It is free to attend the evening sessions but registration is required. To register, click here.  Each presentation will be recorded and available for later viewing on the GIS Day webpage.

Additionally, two apps have been developed by City-Parish GIS staff and the Global Geospatial Institute to engage residents and raise awareness of how geography and GIS can be used in their daily lives. The Map Your Trip app allows residents to easily log their walk, jog, hike, or bicycle trips, while the Favorite Baton Rouge Places app allows residents to mark locations in East Baton Rouge Parish that they consider to be their favorite place to relax, eat, recreate or simply spend time. Mayor Broome encourages residents to use these apps in the days leading up to GIS Day and share any feedback by emailing gis@brla.gov.

This year’s local celebration of International GIS Day is sponsored by the City-Parish, the Global Geospatial Institute, Baton Rouge Green, the Louisiana Community Forestry Program, and the East Baton Rouge Parish Library.

For more information, visit gisday.brla.gov.