Charleston Tech Company Earns National Recognition for App Development

Charleston, SC - September 24, 2015

• Esri, the Redlands, CA based geographic information systems company announced the winners of their Human Health and Climate Change App Challenge. Charleston, SC based company ROK Technologies,Inc. was awarded 2nd place for their development of the Coastal People Watch application, a responsive, mobile web-app that allows users to visualize the effects of rising sea levels on the Charleston Community.

Emma Paz, a lead GIS Developer at ROK Technologies and creator of the Coastal People Watch app, was excited to take on Esri's Human Health and Climate App Challenge this year. As she sees it, "Coastal People Watch could become a practical tool to help officials and public citizens anticipate the potential effects of sea level rise (SLR) and plan effectively, ahead of time."

The app includes visual representations of the various SLR predictions as well as appropriate estimates of the number of people and house structures that may be affected as waters inundate the streets of Charleston. Additionally, the app allows users to map local Critical Facilities and Evacuation Routes in the area (consuming data published by FEMA), all in lieu of the available NOAA SLR scenarios.

"Ultimately, I am incredibly thankful to be able to call Charleston home. I love it here. And it's because I find this place so amazing that I worry about our resilience to the upcoming effects of climate change, especially when we are already familiar with the consequences (i.e. flooding events) that result from intense rain, storm surges and king tides.

Coastal People Watch can help us plan effectively, reduce the strain on emergency human services and ultimate preserve our people's lives and health, as well as the overall health of our beloved Holy City", said Ms. Paz.

The app challenge was sponsored by Esri in response to President Obama's Climate Action Plan--to strengthen the country's resilience to the impacts of climate change. The App Challenge winners were announced by Dr. Este Geraghty, Esri's Chief Medical Officer, at Esri's Health and Human Services Conference in Atlanta, GA on September 15th:

1st Place -- Heat and Social Inequality in the US

2nd Place - Coastal People Watch

3rd Place -- Sea Level Rise and its Impact

About: ROK Technologies serves clients in many industries and governments globally. As an Esri Silver business partner and ArcGIS Server Application Service Provider licensee, we are able to leverage the ArcGIS platform and our cutting edge core competencies to provide Cloud based ArcGIS application development, hosting, and cache management solutions. Additionally, we have expanded our Cloud offerings to include Infrastructure as a Service and Desktop as a service enabling clients to efficiently integrate their enterprise software with ROK GIS solutions, products and services.