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"Ladies Mapping Party" Strengthens Google's Africa Maps
By Curt Hopkins / March 2, 2011 2:00 PM / 0 Comments
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If you like the idea of a quilting bee but prefer your bits electronic instead of fabric,
you might be interested in a "ladies mapping party." 70 Kenyan women were, and
showed up to a Google-sponsored a ladies mapping party at Nairobi's iHub in February.
The women used Google Map Maker, and their specific local knowledge, to fill in schools,
health centers, market centers, community development projects, restaurants and roads in a
country too often neglected by cartographers.
Jacqueline Rajuai, Geo Specialist with Google, said the mix of women and the skills and
knowledge they brought ranged widely.
"We had a mix of students, web developers, Non-profit CEOs, an advocate and even an
editor. Their backgrounds were quite an interesting mix as we had Computer Science
students and Geography students, participants with an environmental background but the
common factor is that they had an interest to improve the Kenya maps. Either where they
live, where they have projects or areas they frequent."
This is hardly the first time Google has invited people to an intensive mapping party. Not
unlike the independent Map Kibera experiment, Google invited the inhabitants of Korogocho
to put themselves on the map. A Pakistan project brought people together last year to map
changes after that country's horrific mudslides.
Google is hardly a non-profit. All the information entered is available for further
iterations of the company's maps. However, Rajuai says this undertaking extends beyond
making a profit.
"The bigger aim of all this is to make the world's information accessible, and
also to make sure that we get more African content, and to make the internet useful and
relevant for Africans."
Any readers involved in other crowdsourced mapping projects? Let us know in the comments.
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw