Hello to all Local Guides! My name is Alex.
I live in Ukraine, and I would like to share my story of becoming a member of the Local Guides community.
In my line of work, I have been fortunate to travel worldwide, searching for groundwater aquifers for communities in the frame of geophysical surveys. Some of the surveys were in remote regions on the African continent. To make the logistics easier, our expeditions were always accompanied by local guides (not to be confused with Google Local Guides). In contrast to Google Local Guides, the majority of our African local guides did not have a daily access to the internet and had never been abroad.
During a typical survey, our team would spend several weeks in a field camp, sharing accommodation, food and stories with the locals. My best memories from those trips are of the long conversations that we had with our African friends every evening by the Nile in the Northern Sahara. Every evening I was asked to share stories about different countries, different cultures, and interesting places I had visited. Fortunately, we had satellite internet at the camp and I was able compliment my “presentations” with photos from my Google Photos account.
I remember one night our guide Elfatih asked me to tell something interesting about my hometown Dnipro in Ukraine. I launched Google Maps on my laptop, typed “Dnipro”, and vuala! We could see the streets and prominent places of my neighborhood. Immediately, I was barraged by questions “How do photos and information get into Google Maps?”, “Why information about their places is not there?”.
To my shame, at the time I did not know the answers. However, I do recall my epiphany moment, when I realized that services like Google Maps were not just to assist navigation. People without means used Google Maps to learn about new places and explore the beauty of our world without borders!!!
Upon my return home I researched the topic and was surprised to know that there was the Local Guides program that aimed at making Google Maps better. So, without hesitation I joined the Local Guides. I felt I had a lot to offer: during the decade of my travels I had been taking thousands of photos, capturing the beauty of new places as well as my emotions. Some of those photos could definitely help others to discover and experience new places.
Once I added a small number of photos to my newly created Local Guides account, I had shared the links with my friends in different countries, including Elfatih from Africa. A few weeks later, to my surprise, I learnt that some of my photos had been viewed more than 1,000 times and created an interest in the community. In my opinion, that was a huge Oscar-like success, which I immediately shared with my teenage sun Andrew. Andrew’s reaction was unexpected – he made a semi-serious comment that if my photos scored 1 million views, he would begin to study the art of photography. I took my son’s words as a challenge! Obviously, Andrew did not see the benefits of my efforts and, moreover, he underestimated my persistence!].
Fast-forwarding to today, my Local Guides photos have been viewed over 5.5 million times… and my son Andrew has been studying photography for three months!
What Local Guides means to me?
Thanks to the local guide from Africa, I joined Google Local Guides. And thanks to Google Local Guides, my son and I became engaged in an interesting and fulfilling quest to help the community to discover the world around us.
