Hello Local Guides, My name is Shaunak Das and I am from West Bengal, India.
I joined Local guides program since its beginning in 2015. The year I when I just introduced myself in the field of my profession after completing medical studies for almost six years. At the same time I felt something special in Local guides program and I started contributing to Google maps.
Basically, I love to contribute to Google maps to make the world simple for everyone. As I am a doctor I want that all emergency information about local hospitals, nursing homes, blood banks, clinics is correct and accurate so that it can save lives in emergency. I love contributing 360 photos to Google maps including hospitals and medical facilities. So that people can virtually experience in hospital which may reduce their anxiety in emergency. Also getting Trusted photographer badge motivates me to take more 360 photos on maps.
It was awesome to see Google has featured me on their “Local Guides Heroes’ series about healthcare campaign video in India. I am sure many people will benefit from this campaign named ‘Let’s join the movement to map India’s Hospitals.’
India is not a disability friendly country. Be it roads, trains or buses, offices - people are not very inclusive when it comes to people with disabilities. So when I see any accessibility features available in an area I quickly update those info in Google maps and tell others to do so. Last month I found some of local places shown on maps are not updated, so I corrected those.
Video Courtesy: Google Local Guides
Beside mapping of medical facilities of my city I love to take photos of city’s tourist attraction and upload them to Google maps. A few examples of such attractions are replicas of ‘Seven Wonders of the world’ at Eco park. floating market - The country’s first and Third in Asia - where hundreds of visitors come everyday. Currently my photo views number has crossed 22 million.
My passion is travelling to new places and I love to take photos wherever I go. There are many tourist spots in Kolkata like Alipore zoo, Eden Gardens (I love watching Cricket), Victoria Memorial, Millennium Park, Prinsep Ghat, Floating market, Seven Wonders etc, and I love to take photos of those. Beside this, I added/corrected many local listings such as petrol station, coffee soaps, ATM, restaurants, etc.
Local Guides program is extremely important to me. It allows me to meet people with same interest. It was my privilege to attend previous two summits (LGSummit16 & LGSummit17) in California. I met Local guides from different countries and Googlers. A few summit attendees from neighbouring counties even visited my city after summit and I glad to met them. I met summit attendees Ilankovan from Sri Lanka, Julien of Singapore and Bangladesh Local guide Mahabub at my hometown. We had such a great time together.
I wish to continue my journey with Google maps as a local guide. I must say local guides family is simply awesome and I am sure more people will join this program every day and help make Google maps beautiful than ever.