End Notes Romero and his team had not only planned every step of the climb but also ensured that anyone with an Internet connection could visualize their journey. They carried some of the technology with them: a SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger location receiver and transmitter, satellite mobile phone, and notebook computer along with solar technology for recharging batteries. Throughout the journey, the ArcGIS application, hosted by Esri, provided the platform to combine maps, satellite images, geolocation, and social media in a single, online viewer. Team Jordan originally envisioned using a live mapping application and, having heard of Esri, contacted the company to help make it a reality. The Esri platform integrates well with online services and social media and can quickly provide map and satellite images at any scale. Randy Frantz, Esri manager for the telecommunications and location-based service industries, worked with the application team of Allan Laframboise and Andy Gup, both Esri Developer Network technical leads, to launch Live on Everest. Developing the Application In just three weeks, the technical team members implemented the Esri ArcGIS platform to support the project. The overall goal was to build a near real-time application so Team Jordan could share the experience with the world. They used Esri's ArcGIS Server to automate back-office operations such as acquiring and storing the team's geolocation and social media data. They used ArcGIS Server, imagery from ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Desktop to create, author, and publish the location data and relate that information as geospatial services. The back end of the system was fully automated, so Team Jordan members could use GPS equipment and social media technology as they normally would without having to carry out additional software tasks to keep their locations tracked on the Web site. This was accomplished with the ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight/Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which provides the mapping interface that delivers www.esri.com The Live on Everest application displayed nearly live tracking, Twitter exchanges, and aggregated social media information from the team's Facebook blog and Flickr photos. live information from Web services such as Twitter. The API enables the creation of rich Internet and desktop applications that use the powerful mapping, geocoding, and geoprocessing capabilities provided by ArcGIS Server and Bing Maps services. Esri offers three ArcGIS APIs—for Silverlight, Flex, and JavaScript—that allow developers to quickly build geoenabled Internet applications and embed them in Web pages. For Live on Everest, the ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight/WPF helped viewers automatically navigate to the team's last reported GPS position and simultaneously see what Team Jordan and others were saying on social networks. It also added the educational components such as weather forecasts and a terrain model. The result was a viewer that brought Team Jordan into numerous school classrooms and living rooms. Jordan's own schoolmates checked on him every day via the Web. Jennie McCoy, seventh grade history and English teacher at Big Bear Lake Middle School, projected Live on Everest on a big screen each morning. She used the opportunity to discuss how making and staying with goals can lead to success. "The students watched as someone they actually knew set a very big goal and accomplished something really amazing," McCoy said. "Perhaps through this technology, I'm actually going to inspire some kids to get out and set some big goals and dreams," said Romero. Nelson reported that although she does not aspire to climbing a mountain, "If Jordan can climb Everest, then I know if I start something I can finish it, like becoming an ultrasound technician or trying to be so good at soccer that I am chosen [as] most valuable player." To learn more about Jordan and his Everest summit, visit www.jordanromero.com and click Live on Everest (http://edn1.esri.com/ everest/default.html) to see the map. ArcUser Fall 2010 69