A team of Geography graduate students designed and developed a GeoApp that was submitted to the recently concluded Esri Canada Centres of Excellence in GIS nation-wide 2021 App Challenge Competition. The Ekoalaty App was developed by Kendra Munn (Geography MSc. student), Alexander Smith (Geography PhD student) and Bright Addae (Geography PhD Student). The goal of their App was to help reduce the different variegated inequalities faced by newly arrived refugees and migrants in Metro Vancouver by providing fundamental resources and information necessary to build a solid foundation in Canada.

The students benifitted by learning to work remotely as a team, managing real-world geospatial data projects, networking with industry professionals, and applying their GIS knowledge towards problem-solving. The SFU Esri Canada Centre of Excellence (ECCE) within the Department of Geography aims to promote GIS research, teaching and skills-development.

Well done Kendra, Alex and Bright!