Spatial thinking is fast becoming extremely relevant in today’s world, and young students in India are increasingly using the geographic approach to solve real-life problems.

Esri India, a leader in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology has been promoting GIS adoption not only in governments and businesses but also in academia. As the number of students wanting to pursue courses in geospatial grows, Esri India has been providing various platforms for students to apply their GIS skills. Esri India Young Scholar Contest is one of the platforms for students to not just strengthen their skills and be industry ready, but also an opportunity to showcase their work at India and International levels.

This year again in April 2022, the Indian GIS student community presented phenomenal solutions for some of India’s most pressing problems such as air pollution, healthcare, land degradation, deforestation, and more as part of the Esri India Young Scholar Contest 2022. Close to 200 students from across the country participated in the contest and showcased interesting projects right from the application of GIS in reducing health inequity among the underserved, analyzing social media data to improve citizen services, assessment of groundwater level variation and more.

Agendra Kumar, Managing Director, Esri India shared on the occasion, “As the Indian Economy leaps from one pillar of strength to the other, geospatial technology is becoming more prominent. Geospatial literacy is key to solving the challenges the country is facing today and thus the need to develop the right talent is paramount. The Esri India Young Scholar contest is one among many of Esri India’s efforts to encourage and acknowledge the out-of-the-box innovations by young scholars. Our aim is to provide this platform for students to develop geographic & spatial thinking approach and apply GIS technology to solve real-life problems.”

Based on a thorough review of Eri India’s expert technical team, the following projects were selected as the top three winners of the Esri India Young Scholar Contest 2022:

• Project 1: Using Twitter Data to Assess Commuters Perception of the Delhi Metro by Apoorv Agarwal from IIT Madras
• Project 2: Analyzing the Access to Educational Facilities in Dahod District by Yash Doshi from CEPT University
• Project 3:  Automatic Ridge Line Detection using Digital Elevation Modelling by Kalyan Nath Somavarapu from National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj

Apart from becoming a proud recipient of the ‘Esri India Scholar of the Year’ trophy, the top winner will get the opportunity to showcase his/her work at the global level at the Esri International User Conference, to be held in San Diego in July 2022. This will be a unique opportunity for the winner to network and learn from like-minded scholars from around the world.