Jack Dangermond presented the ESRI President's Award to the City of Philadelphia for its groundbreaking enterprise GIS applications. Thousands applauded as Jim Querry, director of Enterprise GIS, City of Philadelphia, accepted the award.  

"We're honored to be recognized with such a prestigious award and thankful to Jack Dangermond and everyone at ESRI for helping to make GIS so successful in Philadelphia," says Querry.

"GIS is enabling city leaders to make better decisions and achieve numerous goals as an information framework," he says. "We're looking forward to future applications and the benefits it will provide both city employees and the public in carrying out Mayor Nutter's plan to improve public safety, education, economic development, community health, and services to citizens."

The President's Award is a special recognition by Dangermond to an organization that is a model for others to follow in implementing GIS successfully as well as making a positive impact on the environment and society. Previous winners include the U.S. Department of the Interior, the City of New York, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, and the Hong Kong Information Center.

The City of Philadelphia is a longtime ESRI GIS user with a rich tradition of innovation. Some of the City's recent GIS successes include the Airport's GIS Services Unit's use a mobile computing system to manage operations, assets, and projects in real-time; the Streets Department's geo-centric asset and work-order management system; as well as the Police Department's public Web site (http://www.ppdonline.org/) for viewing where and what types of crime are occurring throughout the city.

New GIS applications are underway include a customer records management system and a new approach to accountability and transparency in city government services—known as PhillyStat—that grew out of the New York City Police Department's CompStat program.