Map-o-fying Pakistan!

All around the world, Google Map Makers have been in high-gear over the past six weeks, becoming Map Maker Ambassadors by organizing local events to spread the word about how people can “map” the places they know and love. Supported by Google, these dedicated mappers have secured event locations at local universities, translated presentations and brochures, publicized the events and coordinated with the local mapping community.

One such event took place at FAST-NU in Lahore on 2nd January 2010 where the Google Map Maker Community in Pakistan held a half-day of discussion, interaction and mapping fun that is being termed as the Google Mapping Party. The brains behind the event were Khurram Siddiqi (Asst. Professor of Electrical Engineering) and Badar Khushnood, Google Country Consultant Pakistan. P@SHA and CIO Pakistan were also supporting the event.

According to Badar Khushnood, the Google Mapping Party was held to take stock of what has been accomplished so far, and to highlight the opportunities that lie ahead.

For those of you who aren’t yet aware of the mapping scene and why it’s important, here’s a little background info.

Google Inc. launched Map Maker, a tool that allows users to draw and edit maps on top of satellite imagery. It has received great uptake by users across the world, and most notably (and perhaps surprisingly for the rest of the world), Pakistan. In this sea of crowd-sourced-and-moderated map making, Lahore became the quickest-mapped city thanks to the collective efforts of Pakistani mappers around the world. It was because of this, CIO also ventured out online to land a really wonderful phone interview with Lalit Katragadda, creator of the Map Maker tool.

Faraz and Jabran are two Pakistani-born, high tech workers living in the United Kingdom. They both learned about Map Maker on the Internet, and they have formed a virtual team with a mission to map Pakistan. Although they live 400 miles apart, they collaborate on mapping Pakistan and providing other mappers with advice and tips on mapping the region.

Faraz started using Google Map Maker shortly after it launched in 2008, and he is now the top mapper with more edits than any other user. Jabran found Map Maker a few months after Faraz. Both mappers started with their home towns and have subsequently mapped many cities in Pakistan. “It’s like mapping your own world — describing your world to other people. In the UK, we use Google Maps to find directions if we want to go somewhere. But we couldn’t do that in Pakistan. This is a big opportunity to help other people find things,” says Faraz.

According to a New York Times article published in the middle of November, Faraz is the top contributor to Google Map Maker, having logged more than 41,000 changes. Faraz and Jibran have also been featured in a post on the Google blog. In addition to individual efforts for improving the Google Map of Pakistan, they have been assisting other young people in Pakistan to learn how to use Map Maker and add and edit maps. The Google event was one platform for them to interact and share their learnings with the aspiring ones.

Coming back to the event, there were some passionate discussions on who owns the data on Google Maps that is being provided by Pakistani volunteers and what if Google switches the service off. In fact here are some of the questions that were raised at the event and helped share insight. Who owns the information? Who controls the project? Who are the potential users? How can the government play role in this large scale mapping of each street of Pakistan?

So the event provided the local mapping community the chance to come together under one roof and discuss issues related towards mapping of Pakistan and to create awareness amongst non-mappers. Also people who are new to this had the chance to learn about the features and tools being offered by Google maps to develop a road maps of their vicinities and add to the collective effort.

To sum it all up, the Mapping party was significant in terms of bringing the mapping strength of Pakistan together. This continues to inspire local companies to rely on information being created “by the citizens, for the citizens” and generate services that increases the quality of life. Next time someone asks you for directions, you, along with the rest of us, will be more inclined to refer to the maps, just because we have them!

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