As a kid in school in the late 70s, Geography was a very interesting subject to me but I found it funny that during map reading, we had to measure distances on a paper map with a thread. I just kept wondering "was there no 'James Bond' way of doing this"? Then I got into college and started hearing of stuffs like Remote Sensing,satellite imageries, etc. And then in 1996, I was actually involved in a ground truthing & baseline studies of the Benue Trough in Nigeria. Wow! It was like the science fiction of yesteryears had come alive! Then came GSM telephony and with it location services in the palm of my hand! And then came Google with a vision to map the whole-wide-world (as my daughter would say). Well I made up my mind that in my own backyard, I will be a part of it and contribute accurate information as a 'ground truther'. But I believe there is still more to be done - for instance, Google map navigation is unable to pronounce local street names and recognise in some cases One-Way traffic directions. With the birth of Artificial Intelligence, can we begin to see a new dimension in Google maps and navigation?
#letsguide
2022
