The contest encourages all young and grown-up explorers to tell their stories on a map with the help of Geographic Information Systems.
Sofia, 14 October 2019 – On the occasion of the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day and the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Esri Inc., the global pioneer and leader in the development and implementation of Geographic Information Systems, Bulgaria launches a National Competition for maps entitled “Stories, Projects and dreams on a map“. The competition encourages all young and grown-up explorers to tell their stories with GIS technology.
During the competition, each participant will have the opportunity to create a printed or interactive map (StoryMap) to tell a story of a topic related to a personal or community project, to share special experience, useful information, historical or factual data, to focus the public attention on a socially significant problem, or a cause.
The interactive maps (StoryMaps) help you tell a thrilling story in a new way by combining authoritative maps with narrative text, images, and multimedia content. They make it easy to harness the power of maps to tell your story in an exciting new way with the universal language of geography.
The maps will be judged by a panel consisting of proven specialists in the field of Geographic Information Systems, GIS applications, cartography, and aesthetics. The best maps will be shown during the GIS Day events, the conference and the official cocktail which gathers more than 600 representatives from different fields. Among the awards for the winners are: an annual license for the world’s leading GIS software Esri ArcGIS Desktop; one year of unlimited access to the richest e-education center for geospatial technologies – Esri Training; specialized atlas with Modern GIS Maps “Esri Map Book” and many more.
Both organizations and individual participants can participate in the contest. Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:
- History and culture (maps representing cultural events, festivals, celebrations, traditions, cultural monuments, historical sites, towns, communities, nations, localities, etc.);
- Education (maps connected to the education and learning process, school, university, course, and everything that helps us develop new and useful knowledge);
- Travel and tourism (familiar and unknown places, roads, sights, and experiences related to the beauty of our homeland);
- Sustainable development (maps related to topics such as the environment, urban development, personal or public causes, good practices and examples from the activities of organizations and many others).
The winners in the “Stories, Projects and dreams on a map” contest will be announced on November 13, 2019, when the GIS Day event in Bulgaria will be held in Sofia Hotel Balkan, as well as on Esri Bulgaria web and Facebook pages.
The official initiator and organizer of the GIS Day is Esri Inc., which for 50 years has provided scientific excellence, innovative technologies, and powerful tools, making Geographical Information Systems an accessible and useful tool for more effective deployment of ideas, plans and projects. GIS technologies help better understand the events and interconnections between objects in the world around us, thus facilitating the identification of existing problems and providing appropriate means for informed decision making.
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