Esri Partnering with XPRIZE Foundation to Map the Ocean
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Esri Partnering with XPRIZE Foundation to Map the Ocean

Esri and the XPRIZE Foundation are partnering in the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE. The cooperation will help accelerate innovative surveys of the ocean, 95% of which remains unexplored. Esri will donate its ArcGIS Online platform to support the USD7 million XPRIZE competition. Participating teams will compete to develop fast, autonomous deep-sea technologies that can map the seafloor at high resolutions. Competing teams will submit their maps using Esri ArcGIS Online to ensure all participants are judged from a consistent technology platform.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will award a USD1 million bonus prize to incentivise teams to develop complementary underwater sensing technology that can detect and track a biological or chemical signal to its source.

Dawn Wright, chief scientist at Esri, stated that ninety-five percent of the ocean floor remains either unmapped or mapped at resolutions inferior to topographic maps of Mars, Venus, and the dark side of the moon. Even when we depend on our oceans for survival, yet we know so little about them; their vast ecosystems and detailed bathymetry are largely mysterious. Esri is excited to support the inspiration and experimentation of new discoveries about Earth’s last true frontier.

Teams can still register to compete if they submit by 30 September 2016.

 

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