Esri Community Member Spotlight: Luiza Fernandes
We’re starting a new monthly series of member spotlights featuring you and your peers here in Esri Community—the people playing a role in finding solutions, sharing ideas, and collaborating to solve problems with GIS. We’re doing this to recognize amazing user contributions, to example how Esri Community’s purpose is being brought to life, and to bring depth to this group of incredible people who may never meet in person, but who benefit from each other’s generous expertise.
A Collection of Maps
Enter the Map Gallery. This collection of GIS ingenuity has become a beloved fixture at Esri’s annual User Conference (UC). If you haven’t experienced it, picture a soaring, open room with walls distant enough to dull sound. An obscured glass ceiling softens the San Diego sun, gently illuminating the large room and its exploring crowds. The feel is pleasantly outdoors-y.
The main attraction, however, is the scores of tall rows of panels that channel curious visitors through the space. The panels are covered in an array of maps, frequently colorful, that are submitted by Esri users to compete in the annual Map Gallery contest.
It was in the UC 2022 Map Gallery where our Esri Community team came across a map with the very real ability to change lives. That’s not hyperbole. Luiza Fernandes (@LuizaCintra_Fernandes) and five of her team members at Arcadis had submitted Housing Match, a map that identifies un-and-under-utilized properties in São Paulo, Brazil that can be retrofit with housing units for those experiencing homelessness.
Because she represented her team at the event, Luiza’s presence gave us the unique opportunity to connect in person and learn more about their map and how she, as a member of Esri Community, has been putting our platform to use.
Tackling Homelessness with GIS
Speaking with Luiza is energizing. She has an easy brightness, delivered through frequent smiles and points punctuated by enthusiastic nods. Her hands are fluid, conducting thought into word.
“The idea of the project was to find housing for people, and we started to think about the homeless people in the city center of São Paulo and thinking what we can do to help them.” Luiza began when asked about the map created by her and team members at Arcadis.
“We have this database for São Paulo that shows which buildings are not being used or are under-used, so we mapped this … We find that if we get this building and construct here, housing for people,” she points to a printout of the map, “how many units and how many houses we can have from that.”
Housing Match is an interactive map of São Paulo, showing properties that may be suitable
to retrofit as housing for the homeless. See the full map at: Virtual Map Gallery
Luiza’s role in the project involved building the web GIS that identified property with potential to be turned into housing units and creating additional layers with important contextual data. She and other team members want the map to be used as an aid for connecting investing stakeholders with data needed to make a marked difference on housing, mobility, and quality of life for vulnerable populations.
While the map reflects a starting point of São Paulo, the intention is for the concept and tools to be used more broadly, multiplying the impact of what it can mean for better resourcing the global challenge of housing for all.
An Esri Community Connection
At Esri, one of our greatest points of pride is that we make mapping products that help businesses and organizations solve the world’s biggest challenges. Luiza and the team at Arcadis are a part of that momentum while leveraging the power of GIS to connect people with their fundamental need of shelter.
Esri Community is a key tool for empowering GIS professionals in accomplishing this and other work, resourcing individuals with vast communal knowledge generated by a network of hundreds of thousands of users from all around the world.
“ It’s the place where we can find, for GIS people,
all the information that we need. ”
We asked Luiza whether Esri Community was supporting her work, and the answer was instant:
“It’s helped me a lot,” she affirmed.
Luiza spends much of her time working with JavaScript API, Python API, ArcPy and more. The resources and readiness of members to answer her questions helping ensure she has the information she needs to solve challenges along the way. Luiza even credits Esri Community with helping her become a Developer.
“It’s the place where we can find, for GIS people, all the information we need.”
Luiza Fernandes is a Senior Digital Innovation Analyst at Arcadis. She and five colleagues developed a web map that identifies properties in São Paulo, Brazil that may be repurposed as housing for the city’s homeless. Explore the map at: Virtual Map Gallery