I am feeling nostalgic while writing this post, let me take you all few years back, a decade ago; when I open a browser and write in web bar “www.google.com” and the moment I go to the search engine page, a question popped up in a corner of somewhere at the page i.e. “Make Google Your Homepage”. It’s always happened with me whenever I was using Google on any browser and Google welcomes me and wants me to make it my homepage to make everything at ease for me while it was the time when I didn’t have the smart phone and Google was only present in my desktop computer.
Now when every palm has a smart phone and we have all information at our finger tips, being the part of Google’s mission to make everybody feel at home in the world is the best feeling one can have.
I always admire and thankful to the Google because whenever I need an advise or word of wisdom, Google is there, when I want to do some research, Google is there, when I am alone, Google is the companion, when I am in a fix, Google helps me, Goggle is always there to give me accurate facts, Google is always there for me from correcting spellings to checking Grammar even translating things from English to Urdu or Urdu to English and on top of that Google Maps have become our guide in making us to reach to our those destinations where one cannot imagine finding a way without any help of a local, now instead of calling people on phones or asking people on roads that how to reach our places, Google map is our fellow being, our best navigator to take us to the every new place which was very difficult to go for a first time or even the second, therefore Google make me at home in so many ways.
Google serves everyone like all are members of a big family that is our world so by following the footsteps of Google let make this world one home for everyone without any discrimination of race, region and religion. Let’s break all those boundaries that divide people and be a one community.
Now here comes this question that what I am giving to Google in return? How I am taking care of my home i.e. Google? When I have realized that Yes, there are humans behind all this information, all this help when I search for a restaurant with high chairs, or a hospital or kids’ friendly places, or wheelchair accessibility for my grandma in a mall or kiddy cars for my nephew or niece then it made me to stop skipping questions when Google inquires me after I visit a place and I started contributing whatever I know and started writing honest reviews and checking facts until one day when I got an email from Google that “Ammara, you’re now a Local Guide for Google Maps” The Google, who was, is and will remain a guide for me, accepted me as a member of his team to help people like myself, who are seeking guidance from Google.
I’ve started posting and reviewing technically on Google maps when I was in Peshawar and was searching for the Sethi Mohalla, a location there for my official project and we were even present within the vicinity but unable to find the exact place, we couldn’t even get help from Google map and that was the day I’ve realized that how much and how important is of checking the facts and answering the questions honestly and posting the facts as best of your knowledge to Google Maps.
From that day onward it was the end of October 2018, I started doing this and within two weeks whatever I know and how much I could be able to share on Google Maps, I just did that and Google accepted me as a Local guide which I even didn’t know before as an initiative by Google and it was not the end of recognition of my tiny efforts but the beginning till I got another email from Google On March 5, 2019 which says that “You could join this year’s big event in California” i.e. Connect Live 2019 about which I did never hear ever, Google really made me feel at home, so welcoming so much loving that I can’t even imagined in my life.
My real mission of life is to serve humanity since childhood so my first agenda is to make people respect, care and love each other as members of a one big family, secondly connecting people through help and guidance for peace and prosperity and last but not least to make them united on common grounds and it can only be happen when one could think beyond from local guide on maps and be a guide in real life too.
As I mentioned earlier that I always want to serve humanity and being a local guide and part of the global community I am now doing this in a smarter way by contributing in Google Maps. This initiative by Google to connect different communities is a real service to mankind because we are all one human race in the end. Google is a real torchbearer in this world of technology and doing a great job so Let’s Begin And Make This World Google!!!