100 Resilient Cities -- Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation -- Teams with Trimble for Innovative Global Urban Resilience Initiative

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- 100 Resilient Cities - Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) is partnering with Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB), which will offer a critical resilience building tool to 100RC's network cities. Using Trimble® eCognition® Essentials software, cities can leverage readily available satellite and aerial imagery from manned or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to produce timely, accurate land use and mapping information that can be used with a Geographic Information System (GIS). The software enables cities to transform images into quantifiable, actionable information about land use that can be applied to enhance a city's resilience building efforts. 

100RC network cities can use Trimble eCognition Essentials to help design and implement the cities' long-term resilience strategy to better plan for and respond to stresses and shocks such as heat island effect, air quality and stormwater runoff, flooding, landslides, fire prevention and recovery and more. This out-of-the-box solution enables city staff to import, fuse, interpret and analyze data to achieve a greater understanding of their environments while expending minimal resources or time.

"In order to build resilience, cities need accurate, authoritative data to assess and understand their built and natural environment," said Bryn Fosburgh, vice president at Trimble. "A key part of the process is managing and processing massive amounts of data in a timely manner. eCognition Essentials produces the information needed for prioritizing planning and response efforts."

"Cities can't just build resilience out of thin air – they need the right tools to do it," said Michael Berkowitz, president of 100 Resilient Cities. "By providing eCognition Essentials software to our city network, Trimble is transforming the work of city planners, analysts and decision teams by providing an analytic tool that turns imagery and GIS data into real, useful information for better decision making. For example, many cities are focusing on reducing their carbon footprint by increasing their urban forest. To track their success, eCognition Essentials can allow cities to establish a baseline to measure their future progress." 

Trimble joins a prestigious group of other "Platform Partners" that are committed to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the shocks and stresses that are an increasingly large aspect of urban life. The platform partners are a vital component of 100RC's efforts, both helping provide cities with tools they need to build resilience, and also influencing the market as other resilience tools are developed.

100RC is dedicated to helping cities become more resilient to the 'shocks' – catastrophic events like hurricanes, fires, earthquakes and floods – and 'stresses' – slow-moving disasters like water shortages, homelessness, and unemployment – they increasingly face in the 21^st century. Each city in the 100RC network receives four concrete types of support:

• Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city's resilience efforts;
• Technical support for development of a robust resilience strategy;
• Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public, academic and non-governmental organization (NGO) sectors who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies; and
• Membership of a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other.

For more information about eCognition Essentials and 100 Resilient Cities, visit: ecognition and 100 resilent cities.

About 100 Resilient Cities

100 Resilient Cities - Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) is dedicated to helping cities become more resilient to social, economic and physical challenges they are increasingly facing in the 21^st century. 100RC provides this assistance through: funding for a Chief Resilience Officer who will lead the resilience efforts; resources for drafting a resilience building strategy; access to private sector, public sector, and NGO created resilience tools; and membership in a global network of peer cities to share best practices and challenges. 100RC currently has sixty-seven member cities.

For more information, visit: www.100resilientcities.org.  

About Trimble

Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

For more information, visit: www.trimble.com.

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