Hello, Local Guides,
Karachi is not only the capital of the province of Sindh but the biggest city of Pakistan and the populated city in the world. That’s why you can see every color of Pakistan here, you can see the culture, tradition, and language from Gwadar to Khunjerab here in this megacity of Karachi.
Last weekend Local Guides from Karachi were invited to present a session in a Knowledge Sharing Meet-up at Thar Boys Students Hostel Karachi.
But let me share something about the most beautiful region of Sindh called Thar from my previous post Colors of Thar which was published more than a year ago on Connect.
Tharparkar :
Tharparkar is the most amazing region of Pakistan . The word Tharparkar means “crossing over sand.” It encompasses two words: “Thar,” which comes from “Thul,” which means sand ridges and “Parkar” means “crossing over.”
Pakistan’s largest, the world’s 17th largest desert, and the world’s 9th largest subtropical desert with approx 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) area and forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan. About 85% of the Thar Desert is located within India, with the remaining 15% in Pakistan.
In India, it covers about 170,000 km2 (66,000 sq mi), and the remaining 30,000 km2 (12,000 sq miles) of the desert is within Pakistan.
More than 60% of the desert is situated in the Indian state of Rajasthan, and it extends into the states of Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana, and the Pakistani province of Sindh. Within Pakistan’s Punjab province, the Thar continues as the Cholistan Desert.
(Facts & Figures from Google)
Knowledge Sharing Meet-up at Thar Boys Students Hostel Karachi :
Before the meet-up, we had a lot of conversations with my friend @GulabParmar who is not only a local guide but an awesome Sindhi motivational speaker and a very humble person. We decided to split the meet-up into two parts, one for the Local Guides program and half would be for Google Crowdsource.
Here I would like to thank my friends and meet-up partners @Bilal_shaikh and @user_not_found who never say “No” to me for any Local Guide activity in Karachi. So We reached on time which was 8:00 pm and were already there for the knowledge sharing Session.
Muhammad Bilal started with the importance of Google maps for Tourism and described so nicely how we should write google maps reviews, Upload photos and edit the correct information on Google maps which would be useful for others who are searching for any specific tourist attractions in our region. And also described by his Google maps profile the procedure of adding new especially small businesses, Which needs to be done especially in many cities Sindh including the areas where all those students belonged.
Swalay Muhammad, who has great knowledge in this specific field, explained everything from start, that how a business can add by an owner using Google Maps add location, how anyone can update all necessary information and their products to Google maps? And how anyone can claim his/her business by using Claim this Business option on Google maps profile (if a business is already added and visible on Google maps) and also shared that how we can take 360 photos for Google Street View when you don’t have a 360 camera and you are using normal android or IOS phone.
Gulab, who had wonderful knowledge about artificial intelligence and machine learning program, shared several notable points to increase the knowledge of participants of the meet-up.
Ishared my experience as a local guide on Connect and how we use the articles on the Local Guides Connect forum’s travel and photography section for promoting tourism and culture of the beautiful land of Thar to the international community of Local Guides. And more I shared the importance of our contributions for 
Accessibility on Google maps by our reviews and uploading photos.
The best thing about the meet-up was the video message from my friend and meetup partner @JaneBurunina . She not only shared a motivational message with participants but she was online with us on video calls during most of the time in the meetup to cheer up us.
All the participants of the meet-up were so happy and excited and were so thankful that we shared the knowledge about wonderful actions which they can do anywhere with their android/ios cell phones and can help others by their contributions on Google Maps.
We would like to thank Mukesh Kumar, Gulab, Ghansham, Ramesh, and all the students from Thar who are studying in Karachi, and who gave us such a warm gesture and in the end, recited some Sentences from the beautiful poetry of famous poet of Sindh “Shah Abdul Lateef Bhitai” regarding our Volunteer work for our country, languages, cultures, and endowed us Ajraks as an honor.
Thanks to Swalay Muhammad, Muhammad Bilal, and Gulab Rai Parmar for their precious time and great efforts.
Here are some moments in this google album which was captured in our fruitful Knowledge Sharing meet-up at Thar Students Boys Hostel Karachi.
best wishes to you
