Esri & National Audubon Society

User conference 2012 was my first exposure to ESRI, and my mouth dropped open.  I was grateful for the opportunity to attend with funding through The National Audubon Society who paid for my registration, meals and stay for the week.

During the conference, I had a plethora of talks to go to, I focused on the conservation topics mostly but also went to a lot of spatial analysis talks.  I was amazed  at the projects and research organizations where conducting via GIS.

I also had the opportunity to table for The National Audubon Society where we discussed the recent establishment of the migratory pathways that the researchers developed through GIS analysis.  As I walked around the nonprofit section, I felt like I died and gone to heaven all the BIG NGOs were there; The Nature Conservancy, Nature Serve, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund,  National Geographic, Earth institute, World Health Organization and many more .

I absolutely enjoyed the conference and look forward to seeing more great research from GIS for conservation planning.