One of the meaningful ways Local Guides help others on Google Maps is by editing and adding roads. Here on Connect, we’ve also seen many of you share key milestones of adding hundreds and thousands — and even hundreds of thousands! — roads on Maps.
To celebrate these amazing Local Guides and their achievements, we’re kicking off a brand new series, “Meet a Road Mapping Champion.” We will bring you the stories of dedicated contributors, showcasing the passion that drives them to make navigation better for everyone.
Our first episode is about not one, but three exceptional Local Guides: @SholaIB, @MarcoDavoli, and @PrasadVR, the team leaders of this year’s TRAC initiative! TRAC was created in 2023 by Shola with the simple goal of inspiring Local Guides to add 3,000 roads on Maps. Three years later, over 100 contributors have now added more than 350,000 new roads!
Read on to learn more about how Shola, Marco, and Prasad started their road mapping journey and their experience as team leaders during TRAC 2025.
What inspired you to start adding roads on Google Maps? Is there a personal milestone you’re particularly proud of?
Shola: My journey started with reading a post by @JanVanHaver in April 2021, and on April 19, 2021, I got my first road approved. I was quite excited!
Aside from my passion to improve Google Maps as a Local Guide, I am a missionary. I travel a lot around West African countries and constantly use Maps. It’s frustrating trying to navigate to a place you haven’t been to and not getting accurate information. Adding roads helps me on my travels; I believe I have traveled on some of the roads I and maybe other TRACians added on Maps.
My greatest milestone isn’t adding 23k roads, although that’s exciting. My greatest milestone is creating TRAC itself — getting to inspire about 100 Local Guides around the world to draw roads on Maps is unbelievable.
Marco: It all started a few years ago. I was on the beautiful island of La Maddalena, Italy, sipping a coffee in a pedestrian square, when a car tried to drive through it. The driver told me he was lost, and the GPS had led him down that path. I had been using Google Maps for years, but until that moment, I had never realized I could actually help improve it by editing or adding roads.
Then, I came across Shola’s first TRAC campaign in 2023. On March 1, 2023, I began with zero added roads. Today, I’ve mapped more than 120,000!
Over these years, I’ve reached many milestones, but what I’m most proud of happened in 2024, when I officially started collaborating with the TRAC team by creating charts, encouraging enthusiasm, and even sparking a bit of friendly competition within the group.
Prasad: I’d always wanted to add roads, but I didn’t know how to start. In 2023, I found the first TRAC campaign by Shola, which inspired me to begin. I also read useful posts by Connect Moderators @ErmesT and @NareshDarji that helped me understand the process better and gave me confidence.
Once I got started, I found it satisfying to see new roads appear on the map and know they might help someone one day.
One big milestone I’m proud of is adding 20,000 roads by November 2024. That felt huge at the time. Now, in 2025, I’ve reached 35,000 added roads. I am proud of the journey and happy to know that my contributions are helping people.
This year, for the first time, the TRAC participants were divided into teams. How did this idea come to be?
Prasad: TRAC has never been just about friendly competition — it’s always been about spreading awareness, helping each other, and sharing knowledge.
In the past campaigns, we noticed a few Local Guides were able to add thousands of roads, while others added only a few. This created a gap and made some participants feel left out.
After some discussions, we decided to try something new this year — forming teams instead of setting individual targets. That way, we could focus on team effort instead of individual numbers.
It helped everyone feel more connected and boosted team morale. This change motivated all of us to work together, support each other, and grow as a community.
What was it like to lead your team? Tell us a bit about your responsibilities.
Shola: Leading a team isn’t always easy but as an experienced Community Builder I was able to manage it. You need to be persistent, patient, and friendly. We had private chats for tutoring and motivating each other and even sharing geographical regions that needed new roads.
My responsibilities included:
(1) Daily communication with the other team leaders to make sure all hands were on deck.
(2) Keeping the team together through daily communication in our Telegram group chat.
(3) Checking in on the mapping activities to make sure we’re mapping correctly.
(4) Organizing meet-ups and other motivational activities.
Marco: Bringing together a group that includes new members unfamiliar with the TRAC campaign and the road editing process on Maps can be challenging. If it’s your first time, it can take up to a month before a road gets approved.
Because of that, my goal was to help everyone grow, explain the necessary steps clearly (I created some short tutorials), and support anyone who feels like giving up. The creation of the unofficial “Proud Badge” was an excellent and much-appreciated idea. It gave many of us a meaningful reason to keep going. I also updated my Masters team with regular private posts on Connect.
Prasad: It was a great honor to lead the Seekers team. We didn’t set any fixed milestones or targets. Instead, we focused on learning together and supporting one another. We didn’t track individual performance either — it was all about teamwork.
We created a private Telegram group where we regularly discussed updated charts shared by Marco, how to identify roads correctly, common mistakes to avoid, and how to draw roads properly. We also reminded each other not to add roads unless we were sure. These chats helped us stay motivated and improve together.
Was there a fun moment that happened to you and your team in the past three months?
Shola: One fun moment for our team, the Runners, was teasing the other teams while we were in the lead during the first month of the campaign.
Marco: One particularly fun moment happened in New York City, when I found myself next to @JustJake and @jayasimha78, members of the Seekers and Runners teams, who were “symbolically taking down” the team leader of the Masters. We shared the photo in our group chat and everyone started cheering for them, hoping the Masters’ leader would fall behind in the challenge!
Was there a moment that you found challenging? How did you overcome the situation?
Shola: The most challenging moments were when we didn’t get approvals for several days. To keep the team going, I assured them that this was temporary and that we should continue adding roads so that when approvals resumed, we would have a bulk of new roads added. Whatever happened, I tried to remain composed.
Marco: The only challenging moment was the final month. Every day, I checked the overall statistics, and it was clear that some fatigue was setting in within the group. For me, it’s essential to keep everyone motivated while also maintaining a personal connection with each individual. Sometimes, it’s enough to message a new friend: “Come on, hang in there, just a little more! You’re only 3 new roads away from earning the Proud Badge.”
We were also getting close to reaching a big milestone with the rest of the TRAC group. I kept everyone regularly updated, and it was great to see and feel the shared desire to achieve this goal.
Is there anything you want to tell your team at the end of this TRAC campaign?
Shola: I’d like to say ‘thank you’ to my dear Runners team and to all TRACians. It’s awesome seeing their dedication to improving Google Maps. Although we officially ended the TRAC campaign on May 31, 2025, we keep on adding roads behind the scenes. We are a special group of Local Guides within the community.
Marco: I’m proud of you all. Remember: Today, someone is probably cruising down the roads we’ve added. We will never know who, when, or how much they appreciate our work. But even if just one person shaves off some travel time or if we’ve assisted in speeding up an emergency response with our efforts — that’s our reward. Being helpful is our shining moment.
Prasad: I just want to say a big thank you to every single member of the Seekers team. Your support, teamwork, and effort made this a special journey. A special shoutout to @SarathUpendran, who was the top performer in our team and second overall in TRAC 2025 — amazing job!
Thank you for your contribution to making navigation on Google Maps better for everyone, Shola, Marco, and Prasad!
Local Guides, do you like adding and editing roads on Google Maps? Let us know below.
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