The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provider Esri announced the launch of their new website ArcGIS Open Data providing access to open datasets around the world including direct access to thousands of open government datasets.
Esri stated in a press release: "Citizens can search, download, filter, and visualize this data through their web browser or mobile device. Any organization can make its data available through ArcGIS Open Data. Since July 2014, more than 1,200 organizations from all levels of government, including the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and several cities in the US and in Japan have used Esri's ArcGIS Open Data to configure custom open data sites to serve local citizens and businesses. Now the public can search across all these sites to find authoritative data by location and topic."
"We are excited about the large number of organizations currently sharing open data and believe we have a great opportunity to boost global support for open data and open knowledge," says Andrew Turner, CTO of Esri's Research and Development Center.
