{"id":696992,"date":"2024-08-30T17:48:10","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T00:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcuser&#038;p=696992"},"modified":"2024-08-30T17:48:10","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T00:48:10","slug":"the-world-we-want","status":"publish","type":"arcuser","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcuser\/the-world-we-want","title":{"rendered":"The World We Want"},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10932,476882,24992],"tags":[489912],"arcuser_issues":[490002],"class_list":["post-696992","arcuser","type-arcuser","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esri-user-conference","category-geographic-approach","category-special","tag-tim-walz","arcuser_issues-au-summer-2024"],"acf":{"short_description":"Minnesota Gov. Time Walz, now a vice presidential candidate, was 2024 Esri User Conference keynote speaker. ","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":697002,"file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"blockquote","content":"His two decades as a geography teacher have had a profound effect on Minnesota governor Tim Walz, the first keynote speaker at the 2024 Esri User Conference."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":697042,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cMaps have had such a big influence in my life,\u201d noted Walz, who has been employing GIS to improve the quality of life for Minnesota\u2019s residents since his election as the state's 41st governor. These improvements include providing universal free school meals for students and laying the groundwork for Minnesota to generate 100 percent clean electricity by 2040. He believes that \u201cthe end product of these maps is a more sustainable economy, a more sustainable environment, and lifting up of people\u2019s lives in a way that they can thrive.\"\r\n\r\nIn describing his journey from geography teacher to governor, Walz cited a phrase used by Esri president Jack Dangermond: \u201cWhere you are has a lot to do with who you are.\u201d Walz grew up in a small town in western Nebraska\u2014a town so small that of the 20 kids in his graduating class, 12 were cousins. As a teenager, he worked as a ranch hand by day and, at night, read old issues of National Geographic magazine and dreamed of faraway places. After graduation, he enlisted in the Army National Guard and served for 24 years. As an artillery officer, geography was a practical concern for Walz, who had to know exactly where he was on the earth\u2019s surface and exactly where everyone else was.\r\n\r\nWalz became a high school geography teacher, teaching abroad and in the United States. His belief in the power of GIS dates to his first exposure to it in the early 1990s, when he received a handful of floppy disks while attending the National Geographic Summer Geography Institute. He took those disks back home, put them in his Mac 2E, and taught himself and his students GIS.\r\n\r\nUsing GIS, Walz helped his students understand the world\u2019s challenges. In one exercise that was an outgrowth of his work with the Holocaust Museum, he asked students to analyze economic, historical, and demographic data to predict where the next genocide would occur. His students predicted that place would be Rwanda. Events 12 months later sadly proved them prescient.\r\n\r\nAfter retiring from the Army National Guard, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2006 and was reelected for another five terms. During his time in Congress, he was constantly appalled by legislators\u2019 profound lack of geographic knowledge.\r\n\r\nWhen he was elected governor of Minnesota in 2018, his belief in the power of GIS to convey complex information to affect change was validated during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the support of GIS analysis and communication tools, Minnesota had one of the highest rates of vaccination and lowest number of COVID-19 deaths.\r\n\r\nMinnesota has been a user of Esri technology for 49 years. Walz continues relying on GIS to pursue the triple bottom line: a state that is environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. He sees GIS as critical to advancing this program because it helps communicate \u201caspirations that are so big that people just can\u2019t wrap their minds around the solutions.\u201d\r\n\r\nHowever, effecting this positive change is not easy. \u201cThere is an entire cottage industry on dividing people and cynicism,\u201d said Walz. \u201cUniting is much harder. Bringing people together is much harder. The tools of GIS and the science behind this and the tools to communicate really help unite people.\u201d\r\n\r\nTo effect change, \u201cyou have to have a plan and the tools for that plan are GIS.\u201d GIS will enable the vision of a fair society to become a reality that delivers the world we want. Walz called on the GIS professionals in the audience to continue to be the visionaries that the world so desperately needs now."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gov. 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