The annual ECCE App Challenge has recently completed its 8th iteration. Each year this competition provides us with the opportunity to see many new and interesting apps created and presented by teams joining from ECCE schools across the country. The 2022 App Challenge has continued this tradition, giving a total of 25 teams of students from 11 higher-education institutions across Canada the chance to showcase the work they can do to create useful and innovative apps using Esri technology…


Visit the App Challenge webpage created on GitHub to view team profiles, videos and apps.

With students from participating ECCE schools in many different programs and with different academic schedules, the one-week development time limit is normally scheduled at different times over a 2-month period from mid February to early April. Similar to last year, the students have been well-prepared to collaborate with each other primarily through virtual collaboration, though we have seen some evidence of students returning to in-person collaborative settings (at least long enough to take a team photo!).

This year, the teams in the App Challenge were tasked with creating apps that focus on topics related to Natural Disasters or Emergency Preparedness. This theme was chosen in recognition that communities across Canada are impacted every year by different types of emergencies and natural disasters that can have a significant impact on people’s safety and well-being. Within the context of the overarching theme, the sub-themes were recommended as areas of focus: Indigenous Perspectives, Sustainable Cities/Communities, or Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. You can review the apps that each of the 25 teams creates this year by visiting their team profiles, watching the video presentations that they produced for their projects, and trying their apps live, all from the GitHub web page created to showcase each team’s work for the annual event: https://esricanada-ce.github.io. We encourage you to take some time to meet the teams, and to review what they were able to accomplish in one short week of collaboration. If you are on Twitter, follow the @EsriCanada_CE handle, and join us in congratulating all of them on their success.

Judging is currently under way, and we look forward to announcing the winners for 2021 within the next few weeks!