How woman is etting local communities on the map
When Google was looking for people with a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) background to help build the Maps for Africa, Jacqueline Rajuai, who holds a degree in Geomatic Engineering from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), was among those selected.
She joined the Kenyan office right after college in 2008. The decision to join the company was easy for many reasons: Google was breaking barriers in the tech space and even though she had no prior work experience, her thoughts and opinions of setting up Google maps in Africa were welcomed.
A few months into working on Google Maps, she became the quality point person, then a significant role in the launch of Google Maps in Kenya, which led to owning, testing and launching processes for features.
She was part of the team that built the first Maps, which covered Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, and expanding Maps data coverage across the continent and launching Maps domains in all of Africa.
Fewer women
The role saw her move to India, where she spent a year setting up a team focused on mapping emerging market countries, and later to Nigeria, where she led the West Africa emerging market Geo operational initiatives.
“Building the first Google Maps for Africa was really scrappy. We began with Kenya and it involved literally tracing roads on satellite imagery using (now a deprecated tool) Map Maker.
Satellite imagery was also really poor outside of urban centres, so the rule was to follow whatever line looked visible and reasonable and ensure connectivity.
When high resolution imagery were made available for the rural areas, you’d find that you’d follow a river thinking it was a road that was, however, miles off. Then we’d spend time moving the segments to align with the road on the new imagery,” she explains.
They also hosted mapping events, which brought together enthusiasts who helped map their communities. “I remember hosting the first women only mapping parties. I had earlier on noticed fewer women were attending general events, which reflected in kind of content we would see on maps. This spread across the continent.
Some of the attendees from these events are now top Local Guides contributors,” says Jacqueline, currently the Geo Programme Manager working on the Geo for Everyone team at Google, where she leads outreach strategy for Europe Middle East and Africa, (EMEA) & Americas for Plus Codes — a project that provide street addresses for people or places that don’t have one.
These interactions exposed a different need in the digital space, which led her to set up the Women, Technology and Entrepreneurship workshop, whose goal is to expose technology as a tool to scale and grow women owned or run businesses.
Through their research, the team noticed users just needed accurate and usable maps. According to industry research, over 56 million users now access mapping services using their mobile phones. Regardless of the user’s location, whether here in Kenya or in the US, when users go to Google Maps they want to find correct information, in a digestible format and in a timely manner.
Community presence
“Paper maps are static, hence unable to aptly capture the ever changing world. They can be difficult to consume. The market was also moving towards mobile phones hence online maps had the potential to meet our users spatial needs,” she explains.
One of her successful project was in Korogocho, where Google worked collaboratively with Internews, a non profit organisation specialised in media development, and Korogocho Youth Community in a project around citizen journalism and telling community stories.
“It was important for the youth to give their community presence. One way of doing that is by mapping the community. It was important to me that Google Maps was giving a voice to an underserved community by being the medium that would literally put them on the map. I trained the youth group on how to add data to Google Maps. In two days they had mapped their entire community. The mapping went on to help monitor and visualise timely health information,” she adds.
Among Google tools, most users are unaware of the Plus Codes, a feature that generates a short address for locations with none. If you don’t have a home or work address, giving directions to visitors or just finding destinations is difficult — if not impossible. With Plus Codes, this problem is solved.
They also have popular times, a feature that helps you to see when restaurants and other popular destinations are most crowded, so you can know exactly when to avoid them.
While Google Maps has improved many users’ lives, it has also created a whole new digital economy. There are a number of businesses that rely on Maps as a core part of their operational model, for instance, transportation apps such as Little Cabs, Uber or logistics companies.
Some tough challenges they faced including getting the market to use Google Maps. Jacqueline explains it has not been easy for various reasons such as, culturally people are not used to online maps. Access to internet isn’t affordable, and use of spatial data in decision making is in its nascent stages.
A lot of education and resources went into getting the market to adopt the use of Google Maps. They also have put in place safety and privacy standards to protect users.
