XYO and esri: Bringing a New Location Layer to the World’s Mapmaker

Esri is the undisputed king of mapping and spatial analysis platforms, period. With the geographic information system (GIS) company providing robust maps for more than 85% of United States governments, and a massive chunk of Fortune 500 companies, the nearest competitor is not even close.

Do these names sound familiar? UPS. The World Bank. The United States Department of the Interior. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They all use esri.

But to understand why esri is esri, one must understand exactly what the company has accomplished. Data points, on their own, are exactly that — data points. Esri takes all sorts of data points, analyzes, them, and provides maps and charts and other documentation that tells a visual story.

Now, there are plenty of lighthearted esri maps, like beer vs. wine consumption throughout the US (spoiler alert: flyover states love their beer while the Northeastern coast is all about wine). Or the map of the night sky, which clearly identifies an astonishing number of constellations — from the ones we’ve all heard of to some only a hardcore enthusiast would know.

But esri also helps governments and companies and nonprofits create maps that do more than keep people safe, they actually save lives.

Take esri and the city of San Diego. For almost 15 years, the San Diego government has used esri’s GIS platform to track and provide services for the homeless. In the past two years, this has become absolutely critical.

In November 2016, a horrific hepatitis A outbreak hit the San Diego homeless population. Two years later, it has taken 20 lives and left almost 600 with the disease.

Tackling this epidemic was beyond difficult. Thanks to fair weather and ample services, San Diego has the fourth largest homeless population in the United States. And Hepatitis A carriers could be walking the streets solo, or living in a large group — a tent camp, for instance — where spreading the illness is as simple as touching someone who is sick.

The city, nonprofits and health workers needed to create an ever-evolving map to track where the disease was being spread, and act with lightning speed to deliver vaccines, treatment and medical care before more people fell ill. Esri provided the map.

Thanks to esri and the hard work of city and healthcare workers, roughly two years after the first outbreak, the outbreak is officially over. And lives have no doubt been saved.

But there are always new data points to be added to esri’s magic mapbox. And that’s where XYO comes in.

In this truly groundbreaking partnership, XYO’s location data will be added to the esri mix. In the context of a hepatitis A outbreak, imagine being able to track the victims — and who they interacted with — in real-time. Think about how much faster a health worker or vaccination team could react if they could see, with almost 100% certainty, where the ill were, who they may have infected, and where they’re headed.

Whether you’re tracking cars in a Smart City, crime victims across a county, or endangered wildlife across an entire state, real-time and evolving data is the engine behind map-based decision making. We’re proud to call esri a partner, and we look forward to bringing another layer of critical data to its platform.