Redlands, California—December 12, 2012—Police officers, firefighters, and Ministry of Interior officials from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will get extensive training in how to use geographic information systems (GIS) technology, thanks to a new Esri Authorized Learning Center that opened in Abu Dhabi this week.

The training courses will be held at the new GIS Center for Security – Abu Dhabi Police. “The center is unique in the region, supporting UAE national security agencies with geospatial technology services,” said Sohail El-Abd, general manager for the Esri Middle East and Africa office. “With the new Esri Authorized Learning Center, professional GIS training will be provided as well.”

The training will only be for police, firefighters, and safety and security officers, with an emphasis on GIS applications for crime mapping and analysis, firefighting, and search and rescue operations. Abu Dhabi Police will hire the instructors and Esri will certify them. Esri will provide all the training materials for the courses, which will include ArcGIS II: Essential Workflows, ArcGIS III: Performing Analysis, and ArcGIS for Server: Sharing GIS Content on the Web.

“The state-of-the-art learning center will develop a cadre of well-trained GIS professionals here who will put the technology to work to enhance safety and security,” Esri president Jack Dangermond said during the Esri Middle East and Africa User Conference, which was held this week in Abu Dhabi. “The UAE’s citizens will benefit in many ways.”

Abu Dhabi has been a world leader in adopting GIS technology, using it extensively in many aspects of government, including e-government services, homeland security, transportation, urban planning, and many other sectors.

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Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.