At TED2010, ESRI President Jack Dangermond Spreads a New Idea: GeoDesign

Dangermond introduced the audience to the concept of GeoDesign, which in simple terms means designing with nature in mind by integrating geospatial technologies into the design process. This gives architects, urban planners, and others the geographic information and analysis they need to design well.

He compared beautiful Japanese temples, homes, and gardens-created by master designers who take nature into account-to sprawling, suburban housing tracts built with little thought to the surrounding environment.

Dangermond joined a roster of diverse and influential speakers at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference, February 10-13. TED is a private, nonprofit foundation that hosts conferences to explore and promote what its Web site says are "ideas worth spreading."

A landscape architect by training, Dangermond founded ESRI in 1969 with a vision that computer mapping and analysis could help people design a better future. Under Dangermond's leadership, that vision has continued to guide ESRI in creating cutting-edge geographic information system (GIS) and GeoDesign technologies used in many industries to make a difference worldwide.

Dangermond said he believes that designing with nature, or GeoDesign, with all the best geospatial technology behind it, is the next evolutionary step in the design field.

Internet: www.esri.com