PRESS RELEASE

News Release July 6^th, 2020

Bloomington, Ind. — 39 Degrees North (39ºN) is excited to announce the acquisition of our Elevate platform and local-government consulting practice to Schneider Geospatial, another leading provider of local e-government services. Elevate provides over 125,000 registered users in 17 Indiana counties with easy internet access to a digital courthouse—a comprehensive suite of local information including property records, tax assessments, zoning regulations, plat maps, and other forms of data. This intuitive system, which delivers more than 800,000 maps on a daily basis, uses geographical layers to help visualize information. Elevate has proved particularly useful during the current health crisis, making it possible for county employees to enter and edit information remotely while allowing users to access the records they need from the comfort of their homes at any time of day.

Headquartered at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Schneider Geospatial and the Elevate team will be positioned to continue providing local Indiana governments with technologically advanced, cost-efficient, convenient access to information. In joining Schneider Geospatial, Elevate will be integrated into the country’s largest provider of e-government services, with almost 600 local-government clients in 28 states. This expanded foundation will make it possible for Elevate to provide Indiana counties and their residents with many new products and services while continuing to develop innovative solutions and provide local-government clients with the best-in-class customer service they have come to expect.

39ºN started from nothing—a kitchen table for a desk and a single desktop computer purchased with student-loan money—and has since become a leading architect of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other cloud-based services. The current Elevate platform is the culmination of 15 years of effort that has undergone 4 major rewrites over the past decade. Elevate has received multiple international achievement awards from Esri. Esri is the world leader in the rapidly expanding industry of geographic information system (GIS) software.

“This agreement will allow the Elevate team and its client base to continue to grow while 39ºN focuses on commercial partners and the state and federal markets. We are grateful for the opportunities we have had to work with our partners in Indiana county government, and we are very proud of the Elevate platform and team,” says Prem Radhakrishnan, the managing member and Co-founder of 39ºN.

In addition to their work on state election-management systems and upgrades to state broadband networks, 39ºN will shift their immediate focus to a facility and asset management project for the Global Deterrence and Defense Department of the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane. This project will involve an enterprise implementation of Esri’s new ArcGIS Indoors platform and improve the staff’s ability to visualize and understand their workplace environment and optimize the use of available space.

About 39 Degrees North:
Founded in 2004, geoConvergence, LLC d.b.a. 39 Degrees North is an SBA 8(a)-certified company specializing in Geographical Information Systems, cloud engineering, data analytics, and software development. Our world-class, cloud-based mapping solutions have won Esri’s award for Special Achievement in GIS on three occasions and earned us the recognition of the Indiana Geographic Information Council. The Elevate platform we developed serves over 125,000 registered users and delivers more than 800,000 maps on a daily basis.

About Schneider Geospatial:
Schneider Geospatial, LLC provides creative e-government solutions that change the nature of people’s interactions with government, improving service while lowering costs. Schneider Geospatial is a leader in providing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) solutions to hundreds of municipal, county, state, federal, and private entities. Serving nearly 20% of the counties in the U.S., Schneider Geospatial is one of the largest e-government providers with industry-leading solutions such as Beacon / qPublic.net (local-government information for the web), GeoPermits (cloud-based permitting and workflow management), and Agland (automates the process of calculating assessments for agricultural land). Schneider Geospatial is recognized nationally for its award-winning work.

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39 DEGREES NORTH was privileged to highlight 2019 electric and gas production for the Indiana Energy Association by using Esri Operations Dashboard technology.

The post ArcGIS Online Dashboard: Indiana Energy Association appeared first on 39 DEGREES NORTH.

39 DEGREES NORTH was asked to create a dashboard for Indiana’s Next Level Connection Broadband Grant Program. This dashboard displays the eligible census blocks for unserved areas. Unserved area, for this program purpose, is defined as a census block that does not have at the time of application at least one broadband provider offering actual speeds of at least 10mbps download and 1mbps upload, or an area where there is not a potential provider for which the census block has been designated through a federal funding program to deploy that minimum level of service by a specified date. Non-contiguous areas may be submitted in a single application.

The post ArcGIS Online Dashboard: Broadband Application Approved Census Blocks appeared first on 39 DEGREES NORTH.

39 DEGREES NORTH has attended the Buy Indiana Expo for many years. After receiving the attendee list this year, we wanted to see a visual representation on where people were traveling from to attend this event.

The post ArcGIS Online Dashboard: 2019 Buy Indiana Expo Vendors appeared first on 39 DEGREES NORTH.

By Kurt Christian The Herald-Times – July 16, 2019

Prem Radhakrishnan’s journey from immigrant to priority contractor for the United States government is — in part — as American as apple pie.

Last month, the United States Small Business Administration announced Bloomington-based 39 Degrees North’s acceptance into a program designed to prop up businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged people. Radhakrishnan, the company’s CEO, immigrated to the United States from India in 2000. When he stepped off the plane at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, there wasn’t a familiar face in sight.

Nearly two decades later, he sat in his company’s headquarters at 908 N. Walnut St. with co-founder and COO Chris Walls to recount the steps that led to his being stranded in a foreign land — and how he mapped a carefully calculated plan to turn those humble beginnings into an advantage.

Apple pie and rock music

Radhakrishnan grew up in a lower-middle class family in Kollam, a city in the Indian state of Kerala. He said, in 1996, he was the only one from his hometown accepted into the Indian Institute of Technology. He took on student loans and started working nights to put himself through college. Before long, he was enticed by some of the hallmarks of Western culture.

He joined a ‘70s cover band to play guitar and sing Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Beatles tunes. He frequented an American restaurant and was partial to their apple pie, though, he’s since come to admit they make a much better pie in the States. He found himself saddled with student loans and had to ask his father for money to pay for graduate school entry exams.

After some friends in California helped him apply to and secure a spot at Southern Illinois University, Radhakrishnan convinced the bank to defer his student loans and headed to the United States. He was on his way to get a degree in underground construction and tunneling when he was left hanging at O’Hare.

“The family that was supposed to pick me up got the dates confused,” Radhakrishnan said.

Radhakrishnan borrowed a phone and a phone book from the airport Starbucks and began calling everyone in the greater Chicago area with the same last name as his host family. Eventually, he lucked into calling the right number and his host family took him to their home for a quick meal. They gave him $39 for a bus ticket and sent him on his way.

In 2003, Radhakrishnan came to Bloomington to attend Indiana University, where he got a master’s degree in geography and started working at the Indiana Geological Survey. It was there that he met Walls, and their Monday night beer and wing ritual at Scotty’s Brewhouse slowly turned into business meetings about starting their own company.

“When we first started, we just wanted to create intelligent online maps,” Radhakrishnan said.

The idea was to create a better visualization of data; something like Google Earth that provided satellite imagery combined with the ability to click on a parcel of land and learn about its zoning, most recent sale, tax history, latest appraisals and more. Radhakrishnan and Wells wanted to make Geographic Information Systems (GIS) something attainable, something that could be in everyone’s hands.

In 2004, they launched what would become 39 Degrees North. The name refers to the nearest latitudinal parallel to the company’s Bloomington headquarters.

One of the company’s first major contracts was with Monroe County. Walls reduced his hours with the Indiana Geological Survey to focus more on the Monroe County GIS, but Radhakrishnan wasn’t able to tear himself away from his job with IU. He’d committed to supporting his parents back in India, so he often worked a full day at the university before staying up until 3 a.m. with Walls to make sure they would be able to deliver the product.

They ultimately designed an automated system to be placed on the county’s servers, one that would automatically scrape public information and place it into what is now called Elevate.

In 2005, they flipped the system’s switch just hours before it was due. They’ve since grown from four employees to around 10, and the company now provides geographic information systems for more than 17 counties across Indiana. Elevate’s total number of registered users hit the 100,000 benchmark just a couple weeks ago. As 39 Degrees North branches into several new markets — cybersecurity, software engineering, cloud services and more — Radhakrishnan and Wells are angling for bigger fish.

Barriers to growth

Radhakrishnan and Wells are no strangers to the lucrative world of government contracts.

As a subcontractor, they automated the administrative duties of the federal Veteran’s Affairs office in Washington, D.C., so that money spent managing leased space could be redirected to actually helping veterans. They’ve also had subcontracts with the U.S. Army and Navy, as well as state-level contracts with Indiana’s department of revenue, office of technology, department of education, secretary of state and commercial real estate exchange.

Adding in the work they’ve done with Indiana University and the University of Kentucky, and the company’s largest annual contract tops out at $850,000.

That’s not the norm, though. Radhakrishnan said most of his company’s contracts are much less than that, and even that largest contract isn’t enough to convince federal institutions that a small, minority-owned business out of Bloomington is worth a bigger slice of the pie.

Snagging a federal contract often requires prerequisites beyond the reach of the small business. Radhakrishnan said his company has been denied a contract in the past for not having worked on five projects, each totaling more than $1 million. And being forced to work as a subcontractor once required Radhakrishnan and Walls to wait 570 days for approval.

“The size of the company is not a reflection of what we can do,” Radhakrishnan said.

As they grew their business, Radhakrishnan also started working toward his citizenship. He’d become familiar with the benefits provided to him at the state level as a minority business owner, but it would open the door to even more support if he were to prove himself a naturalized citizen. Among those supports was the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program for socially and economically disadvantaged people.

To qualify, Radhakrishnan and Walls had to demonstrate that their company was at least 51% owned and controlled by a citizen who is economically and socially disadvantaged. Eligible owners cannot have a net worth over $250,000. They also can not have an average adjusted gross income larger than $250,000 over the past three years, and they can’t own more than $4 million in assets. The real feat is to prove that they were disadvantaged, but also successful at the same time.

“It becomes a balancing act, almost,” Radhakrishnan said. “You have to have a proven track record.”

Walls said it took 471 days from the time they applied for the designation to the time it was approved — and though it was a challenge to demonstrate Radhakrishnan was a majority owner since he splits his time between Bloomington and the Murrieta, California, office — the hard part isn’t over yet. The company will be evaluated every year for the next nine years to determine whether it still qualifies as a disadvantaged business.

Now that they’ve procured the designation, Radhakrishnan and Walls can assume the role of primary contractor and speed that process up so it only takes around three months. The designation sets aside contracts for disadvantaged businesses, connects those businesses with specialists and provides assistance with training, counseling and other executive development needs.

Walls hopes that, in the first three years of the program, the program will help 39 Degrees North grow to 50 employees. He said most end their time with the program with an average of 250 employees.

“We’ve really worked hard, but we haven’t had the opportunity to grow the business like we wanted to,” Radhakrishnan said.

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If you or your organization needs help in getting started with creating web maps or applications, 39 DEGREES NORTH has predefined solution packages to get you on your way. For more information, please visit https://39dn.com/arcgis-online-fast-track/.

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Two different NOAA weather stations near the lake report 7.55″ and 9.66″ of rainfall for the first half of June. Approximately 4 to 5 inches of this rain has fallen in the past week which equates to about a 5-foot rise in water level according to a gauge station on Monroe Lake.

Here is a link to view the gauge station:
https://water.weather.gov/resources/hydrographs/moni3_hg.png

Here is a link to view historical weather:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/

The post How much rain does it take to raise Monroe Lake 5 Feet in a week? appeared first on 39 DEGREES NORTH.

Bloomington, Indiana – geoConvergence, LLC (doing business as 39 DEGREES NORTH) is proud to announce its acceptance into the United States Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program. 39 DEGREES NORTH is a Bloomington-based GIS company formed in 2004 that provides cloud engineering, cybersecurity, geospatial services and software engineering.

The announcement follows a culmination of a 471-day effort from the initial application submission to the final acceptance. According to a Small Business Administration report from 2017, there were 30.2 million small businesses in the United States. As of June 2019, only 5,985 of them have successfully completed the process of obtaining their 8(a) certification. This certification has a nine-year lifespan and allows participants to compete for set-aside and sole-sourced federal contracts.

The business development program also provides assistance from the SBA in navigating federal contracting, guidance in forming joint ventures, and management assistance (including business training, counseling, marketing assistance and high-level executive development).

“We are very much looking forward to this opportunity to build new partnerships and expand our operations with the Federal Government. This will also allow us to offer new IT services to the local and state customers in Indiana who have been supportive and instrumental in the success of our company,” says Prem Radhakrishnan (CEO).

39 DEGREES NORTH’s current major Indiana customers include the Indiana Secretary of State, Indiana Department of Revenue, Indiana Office of Technology, Indiana Department of Education, Indiana University, Purdue University, and the following Indiana counties (Benton, Bartholomew, Cass, Clark, Elkhart, Floyd, Grant, Harrison, Hendricks, Jay, Lawrence, Miami, Monroe, Morgan, Orange and White).

For more information, please visit https://39dn.com.

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