Free ESRI Licenses for URISA GIS Corps Volunteers

This was a piece of good news I came across today, ESRI has announced it will be providing free personal licenses of their software to individuals who wish to support volunteer opportunities.

https://www.directionsmag.com/pressrelease/7082

Individuals who already volunteer through the URISA GIS Corps need only to fill out a "GIS Service Pledge" form indicating which organization they plan on supporting and the type of volunteer work being provided.  There is a four week verification process prior to the software being issued to each user.

http://www.giscorps.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=210&Itemid=60

As much as I encourage and enjoy using open source software in my volunteer efforts with the GIS Corps, I also think this pledge by ESRI will be extremely helpful in making volunteer efforts more accessible to people who may be more hesitant to step out of the ESRI bubble.  In my experience with volunteer projects through the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, one of the biggest hurdles has been learning a new piece of software prior to supporting the volunteer work (ex: QGIS, Java OpenStreetMap Editor).  While these are both excellent pieces of software which I enjoy using, I think in some instances the learning curve for these open source tools can be a bit too high for the casual GIS user.

Anyways, this should be a good initiative put forth by ESRI!  I signed up today, so I'll provide an update on the process if/when my request is approved!

*UPDATE*

My application was approved and I will be receiving a download notification from ESRI for ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS for Desktop.  I am pleasantly surprised at how quick and easy this process was, and I can't wait to start contributing to the GISCorps in a big way!