Hello, Local Guides,
As we already entered 2023, let me wish you all the first “Happy New Year from Pakistan”
In December, we got another great opportunity to spread messages of the Local Guides program to the people of Pakistan through a video documentary on Pakistan’s leading channel and newsgroup Dawn News, which was launched in the United India in 1941. Now It is one of the largest English newspapers in Pakistan. Dawn is the flagship publication of the Dawn Digital Media Group, which also owns local radio station CityFM89 as well as the marketing and media magazine Aurora. and with 4.8 million followers on Social media.
Here is the Link of the video which was Shared on Facebook . Which got 14k views already.
Mr. Shahrukh Ahmed was the director of this documentary, who also invited us some months ago on a morning talk show at 92 news, to talk about Google maps and the Local Guides program. Which was a great breakthrough for us in the media to share about the Local Guides program and Community after a long time.
So I got a call again from Mr. Shahrukh, who invited us to participate in a documentary about the Guiding Star awards, the Local Guides program, and Google street view, which we accepted with all our pleasure. Because it was the first time that we were going to share about Local Guides Guiding Star awards, and also going to share our feelings after getting this wonderful title.
The Chosen place was Frere Hall Karachi, which is one of the most well-known landmarks of Karachi, with a great example of architecture from the British era.
As I shared the open invitation of participation on Social media and messenger groups along with constant participants of previous members like , @Bilal_shaikh , @DrFoodieOfficial
(Rizwan Shah), @GulabParmar
,Shaheen_Gul , @sheeraz and @Swalay , this time we had a fantastic StreetView photographer with us Muneeb Wasi khan.
The director of the Video documentary Mr. Shahrukh suggested splitting the video into two parts, the first one was about Google Maps, Local Guides Guiding Stars, and Google Street View, and also choosing participants for the video I (KashifMisidia), Shaheen Gul, and Muneeb Wasi khan.
And the second video would be about Helping Languages by Google Crowdsource in which they will feature Rizwan Shah and Gulab Rai Parmar.
Translation Of Video Documentary :
The language spoken in the video is Urdu, but for the people who are having difficulty understanding the Urdu language, I’m sharing the translation of the video in English, which is also not easy to read while watching the video on YouTube, but I just tried to explain it as much as I could.
First Part :
From 00:00 to 03:08
Kashif Misidia:
We are not paid workers of Google but Volunteers
My name is Kashif Misidia and I’m a Local Guide, A Connect Moderator, and a Google Crowdsource Influencer and Community Leader from Pakistan.
The volunteer job of a Local Guide is to take a part in the improvement of Google maps in their countries, trying to improve the accuracy of locations, adding small and big businesses, and also we update the photos of tourist attractions of our country, because if a photo of any place is updated by us frequently, so the people from abroad who are taking interest to visit these tourist attractions can get updated information and photos.
During the pandemic period, the Local Guides community which is now around a community of 200 million contributors, all focused to add and support small businesses around the world.
And here is what we do, as if I’m living near Hussainabad Food Street in Karachi. There we have a lot of small businesses and restaurants, so we added and updated these businesses because many of the shops were not visible on Google maps before.
Google selected 50 people around the world and gave them the title Guiding Stars, in 2020, 2021, and 2022, so Google gave an honor or award to these Contributors. I’m so honored and lucky that I got this title in 2021 and 2022 consecutively. And In 2022 From Pakistan, two people got this title, and I’m one of them.
We are not paid workers of Google, but we are volunteering for the betterment of Google maps in our country.
We must have to see that at the end, who will get the benefits? The thing is that, if we are doing this volunteer work for free, people from our countries are also getting the benefits of Google maps for free.
It will not take so much time if you add small shops and businesses in your area on Google maps with their phone numbers and contact details, they will surely benefit from it.
The question which I get most from people is " if I work as you are doing, how much payment will I get from Google?"
So I always answer them that " there are many things people do for free and as their hobbies, and many things you love to do but not for the money, like some people, love to fly kites, some people like to participate in games and sports, some people play Cricket, of course, these are healthy activities, but if you are traveling or going somewhere, and if you can spare just 5 minutes for adding any new business or small shop, so it will be visible on Google maps, and somehow the business which was added or edited by you will surely get many benefits and customers.
I have another honor that in this community of 200 Local Guides, there are 48 Connect Moderators from all around the world, some from the USA, India, Bangladesh, and other parts of the world, who moderate the Connect Community. I’m one of them with my fellow moderator @OmerAli from Pakistan.
Second Part
From 03:10 to 05:20
I’m one of the 54 Guiding Stars from Pakistan among the community of 200 million Local Guides.
I’m a student,
I’m giving my free time to Google maps which I was wasting before on other activities. We update maps, for example, if we are going somewhere, we try to share an honest and accurate review of those places, so the people who are planning to visit these places can get guidance about facilities in those places.
Google maps analyze the ways by GPS and satellite, and it will always recommend the way first which will be with lesser traffic. Maybe it will take you a long way or a little bit more time, but finally, you will reach your desired destination.
For example, if someone moved the pin Location of Frere Hall wrongly, the person who is coming here cannot reach an accurate place, so this is our responsibility whenever we see a Google maps pin Location in the wrong place, we should edit and fix it to the accurate place. Sometimes traveling with the help of Google maps takes some time, but it will always bring you to the correct place without hurdles.
When I joined Napa as a theater artist, the location of Napa was a way far from the exact location, and it was the reason for confusion for many people, so when I reached there, I checked the map, and when I saw the pin Location wasn’t correct, I edited the profile of Napa on Google maps and fixed it to the main gate of Napa. After doing this, I’m still getting notifications from Google maps that “your edits for Napa are helping thousands of people”.
Local Guides also can report the photos like selfies and other irrelevant photos on any tourist destination like Frere Hall. So google maps will remove it.
As I’m from Badin Sindh, so whenever I visit my village, I add the School of my village in Google maps.
Third Part
From 05:28 to 07:27
I’m a Google Maps Contributor, specifically A Google Street View Photographer. Officially we can’t see the street view of Pakistan on Google maps. In other countries like Europe Google uses Cars, Motorcycles, and walking street view equipment to create the street view of any Virtual tour of the city, they are official people of Google. But in Pakistan Google didn’t cover the street view yet for some reason, but as a resident of Karachi and as we know Karachi very well, and also know which place is not restricted to capture the street view, so there we are creating an unofficial street view of Karachi.
As you can see blue lines in Google maps of many countries are called street views of any city, only you can see the blue lines for roads and streets. But yes, you can upload 360 photos of any place as well like any restaurant or any Tourist Attraction. The use of a 360 Camera for capturing these photos is the easy way because when you are trying to capture 360 photos with your mobile phone, it will take so much time. After all, you have to capture all frames around you.
It’s hard work, but why am I doing it for free? Because this was the vision of my father, actually once my father was seeing the map of Indonesia, and he saw blue lines on Google maps. Which was shown on the map of Indonesia but not on the maps of Pakistan. So he said it should be on the maps of Pakistan as well. So in the next year, I captured almost 500 kilometers of street view, which was the longest street view of Pakistan, which I did unofficially.
Our Expectations after recording the Documentary :
After the recording of the video, we all were hoping that our efforts of conveying great messages about the Local Guides Program through this documentary will go successful and we will get many more contributors from our community, who can also help and support small businesses in Pakistan and promote Tourism in our country.
Till now, when I checked lastly on Dawn News Video On Facebook, 14k people already watched this video on Social media. Yes, that’s not a very satisfactory number, but still, we have a lot of hope that people will get our messages and they will become great contributors to Google maps and Local Guides Connect.
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and I’m proud of you 
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