I’m an Ivorian Google Local Guide level 8. I live in Abidjan, the biggest city of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).
I have a passion for science and technology that includes nice cars 
and formula 1, airplanes, space rockets, stars and planets, wild life, photography and information technology. Applications of Sci-Tech are everywhere around us and we use them on a daily basis. I like the way Sci-Tech contribute to improve people lives. Thanks to Sci-Tech, many things are so easy and fast today. For example, travelling with planes and high-speed trains, fighting diseases, communicating on the go with smartphones (especially Android ones ), storing photos and videos in the cloud (thanks Google Photos), getting information (thanks Google) and planning trips with Google Maps.
Getting to a place in my city is a big challenge as we don’t use street address names. People struggle to give indications and waste time finding directions. Using Google Maps GPS addresses is a real game changer. I discovered Google Maps many years ago and since then, I am more and more involved in this service, moving from a light user to a heavy user and to a contributor thanks to Local Guides program. It’s a big solution to this lack of street addresses in my country.
I remember a story when I moved from Cote d’Ivoire to Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) beginning of 2015 for a new job position. Few days after my arrival, we had and event far from the place where I lived. I asked one colleague to give me the name of a well-known place near the place of the event. With the name of the place, I was able to get to the event thanks to Google Maps Navigation feature. She was so surprised to see me driving alone without the help of a local person. I told her I came with Google Maps . Today, I always ask for Google Maps GPS addresses to plan rendezvous and use it to optimize my route and make choices based on live traffic conditions.
On July 17th 2016, I joined the family of Local Guides. As a passionate photographer, I used to take pictures anytime I travel. I like discovering places, nice buildings, landscapes, foods, animals, people and I capture anything that catch my eyes. I was happy to share all these nice pictures to the world with Google Maps. I find it really funny this easy way of helping others. Getting regular feed-back from Google Maps team on my level, my contributions and the number of views my photos get, keeps me motivated to do more. So far, I have shared more than 2 750 photos that I took around the world and I reached level 8. I am proud to see these pictures got more than 5 million views.
Now, I try to post photos that make real difference. I post information that help customers of stores, restaurants and hotels: in-store pictures, products with price tags, foods, menus, hotel bedrooms, hotel lobbies. This helps people making their choices before getting to these places. I also answer all questions related to accessibility that Google Maps prompt to me. People don’t really care about accessibility in my country and I want this to change.
Back to my country Cote d’Ivoire, my new objective as Local Guide is to support small businesses in my city by adding them on the map with relevant and up to date information and pictures, making reviews and giving some advices when possible. I will help both people in my city to find services and help these small businesses to find customers.
I look forward to meeting other local guides and work together for the benefit of my community. My dream is to meet Google Maps team in California!