Canadian company samdesk wins Innovation Award at Esri Partner Conference

Samdesk real-time crisis alerts integrated with Esri maps help organizations reduce risk and improve resiliency from disruptive events and threats

TORONTO, March 11, 2025–Esri Canada congratulates samdesk for receiving the Innovation Award at the Esri Partner Conference in Palm Springs, California. Headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, samdesk helps organizations worldwide reduce risk and improve resiliency by alerting them in real time to disruptions that may affect their business, operations and assets. 

“Recognizing threats to people and operations early enables organizations to take immediate action to mitigate and avoid negative outcomes,” says Jason Breukelman, director, Strategic Alliances, Esri Canada. “Samdesk real-time crisis alerts combined with Esri maps bring situational awareness, risk management and incident response to a whole new level. They have developed something truly innovative that further enhances the benefits of GIS to users.”  

“We are delighted to receive this recognition for the work that samdesk does with Esri. Esri is nothing short of fantastic to work with,” says James Neufeld, founder and CEO of samdesk. “In today’s environment, customers need safe, cost efficient and fast solutions. Working tirelessly to solve customer pains is the shared value between Esri and samdesk.”  

Samdesk uses artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time context from public sources to craft alerting data and content. Esri users can layer samdesk real-time crisis alerts over their Esri ArcGIS maps to receive notifications when incidents might disrupt their operations. The alerts provide rich context and on-the-ground visuals of critical incidents such as active shootings, military action and natural disasters, well ahead of traditional news and other sources. If a crisis is occurring in proximity to locations of interest, teams can immediately enact an emergency response, getting people to safety and minimizing negative impacts.

Organizations worldwide use the integrated Esri-Samdesk solution to:

• protect people and assets by identifying crises in real time
• proactively mitigate risks 
• effectively respond to unforeseen events 
• enhance analysis and location-based planning using historical, contextualized crisis data.  

Samdesk alerts leverage Esri ArcGIS feature services and can be ingested into ArcGIS Velocity, providing real-time access to emerging geospatial crises or situations. Samdesk alerts also integrate with ArcGIS Dashboards to enhance operational systems and gain deeper insights into supply chain management, employee safety, travel, entry to new markets, operational safety and beyond. 

Samdesk serves customers in numerous sectors including commercial, public safety, utilities, defence and security, government, energy and natural resources. Its users include NATO, LA Metro and Nutrien.

Explore Samdesk Real-Time Crisis Alerts and Esri ArcGIS 

About Samdesk
Samdesk is an AI-powered global disruption detection platform that delivers real-time crisis alerts and situational awareness to organizations worldwide. By leveraging AI and open-source data, samdesk empowers security, risk, and operational teams with instant insights into emerging events—helping them protect assets, ensure business continuity, and respond proactively to crises. The samdesk platform seamlessly integrates with Esri’s ArcGIS technology, enhancing decision-making with real-time and historical event data. Learn more at samdesk.io. Follow samdesk on LinkedIn.

About Esri Canada  
Founded in 1984, Esri Canada provides geographic information system (GIS) solutions that empower people in business, government, and education to make informed and timely decisions by leveraging the power of mapping and spatial analytics. These solutions enable organizations to better manage their resources, plan their future and collaborate within and beyond their organization. Esri Canada’s products and services help advance successful digital transformation. The company serves more than 14,000 organizations from 13 offices across Canada and is based in Toronto. Esri Canada has been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for 12 consecutive years. More information can be found at esri.ca. Follow Esri Canada on X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. 
 
For media inquiries, please contact: 
samdesk
Celine LePage
Director of Marketing
celine.lepage@samdesk.io 

Esri Canada
Joy Chan 
PR & Corporate Communications Manager 
press@esri.ca 

From left to right: Danny Spillmann, Corporate Director, Global Business Development, Esri; Tiffany Menchaca and Steve Dirks, Senior Account Executives, Public Sector, samdesk; Jack Dangermond, Esri President; Jason Breukelman, Director, Strategic Alliances, Esri Canada; Fiona Hatfield, Business Partner Manager, Esri Canada; Richard Cooke, Corporate Director, Global Business Development, Esri; and Thomas Fair, Director, Esri Partner Network