Latin America Mapping Competition Winners

When we launched the Latin America Mapping Competition at Campus Party in Mexico City on November 14, 2009, we weren't sure what to expect. This was Google's first ever mapping competition, after all. When the competition closed on December 15, 2009, we were impressed with the results. For example, mapping activity increased more than 1000% in some areas of Latin America.

Timelapse of Rosario, Argentina where most roads were mapped in one day for the Latin America mapping competition.

Hundreds of mappers entered the competition. Here are the winners:

Individual Prize
Winner: Daniel Mugaburu
"I've mapped several cities in Peru (my country of origin) because I know it very well, and a lot of areas need urgent updates. I've been mapping for almost one year already and I plan to keep on doing it. My motivation has always been helping others to find streets, hospitals, etc... in order to increase their life quality."
Born and raised in Peru, Daniel currently lives in Connecticut, USA.

Team Prize
Winner: The "Ukrainian Team" consisting of 8 mappers in Austria, France, Peru and the Ukraine who used Gmail, Google Wave and Google Docs to coordinate their mapping efforts.

• Anton Berezhnyi, team leader
  
• Boris Villagarcia
• Cesar Adrianzen
  
• Christian Monzon Cardenas
• Matthieu Abribat
• Olga Sokalska
  
• Vasiliy Saenko
• Yevgeniy Kolesnyk
  

City Prize
Winner: Lima, Peru
La Universidad Mayor de San Marcos will receive the 100 laptop donation.

Congratulations to all the Latin America Mapping Competition winners, and we invite mappers everywhere to participate in the Global Mapping Competition benefiting UNICEF that runs through January 31st.

Posted by Jennifer Mazzon, Maps Community Organizer

Google Map Maker Ambassadors -- party on!

All around the world, our Google Map Maker users 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.

Power-mapper Mihai organized a Map Maker event in Bucharest, Romania in mid November:
Serbia mapper Jovica organized a Map Maker event at Novi Sad University in early December:

Ulziisaikhan & Tsengel organized several "Map Maker Fairs" in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in December:

Tilek Mamutov, a Dublin-based Googler and a top Map Maker user in Kyrgyzstan organized two Map Maker events in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and Almaty, Kazakhstan in late December:

And to ring in the new year for mappers in Pakistan, super mappers Faraz and Jabran, with help from fellow mappers Omer and Khurram organized a mapping party in Lahore on January 2nd:

Here's a big shout-out and thank you to our Google Map Maker Ambassadors, and we're looking forward to similar events being organized in Kerala, India (February 5th) and elsewhere. In the meantime, check out the Google Map Maker Global Mapping Competition benefiting UNICEF that runs through January 31st.

Posted by Jennifer Mazzon, Maps Community Organizer

Finding your way in India with landmarks

In the past few months, you may have noticed that Google Maps directions have been using some new phrases such as "Take the 2nd right" rather than just "Turn right". We're using phrases like this because they're natural concepts that relate to the way we think about navigation in real life. They're the way a friend might give you directions. This week we're taking this concept further for users in India, using landmarks to help drivers get their bearings.

During a trip to the Google engineering office in Bangalore, our driving directions engineers got a chance to learn firsthand how drivers navigate in India. We discovered that street signs or names tend to be less important than landmarks such as civic buildings and gas stations. A friend giving you directions might tell you to "Turn left at the school" or "Go past the convenience store". In India, we have a lot of great landmark data available through user-entered "Points of Interest" in Google Map Maker.

Our new algorithm determines which of these landmarks are most useful for navigation, based on visibility, importance, and closeness to the turns that you're making. We now combine landmark data, counted turns ("the 2nd right"), intersection names, and road names, and try to use whatever information is most relevant and useful. We're using landmarks in two ways: to identify where users need to turn, and to provide confirmation that they're on the right track. You can read more about the research that went into this feature on the Official Google Blog.

Landmarks now appear in both desktop and mobile directions. As a result, we hope that our users in India will have an easier time getting to their destinations using directions in Google Maps -- and you can improve our directions by adding more POIs in Google Map Maker!

Posted by Dave Walker and John Leen, Software Engineers

Mapping India on Google's Internet Bus

Throughout December, Google Map Maker team members are touring around India with Google's Internet Bus to show people how to create maps of their local villages and towns. The Internet Bus Project is an initiative to educate people about the Internet, and how it can be beneficial to their lives. The customized Internet-enabled Google bus travels to towns and cities across India and takes the Internet experience to the people.

interior of the bus

When the Google Internet Bus last week made its grand entrance into the province of Kerala (after having completed the journey through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka), the paradise of waving palms, sprawling backwaters and wide sandy beaches, bus visitors were able to view their home and neighborhood and use Google Map Maker to map their home towns and favorite destinations.

You can see other pictures of this leg of the Internet Bus tour here. The bus is traveling through the following cities throughout December:

• Kochi/Ernakulam - December 5, 6, 7, 8
• Allapuzha - December 10, 11
• Kollam - December 12, 13
• Thiruvananthapuram - December 14, 15, 16, 17
• Thrissur - December 19, 20
• Pallakad - December 21, 22
• Kozhikode - December 23, 24, 25
• Thalassery - December 26, 27

If you are from Kerala or visiting Kerala during this time, hop along for the ride and discover the art of map making on the Google Internet Bus!

Posted by Ajith Kumar, Google Map Maker Program Manager

Uniting for a cause

At an event organized jointly by the United Nations and Google at Google's office in New York, 80 United Nations delegates from more than 20 UN agencies, met with various Google product teams to explore how Google's wide array of products and services can further the UN mission and help foster innovation and new thinking. Google's Alfred Spector and the U.N.'s Choi Soon-hong, the first Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO) for the United Nations, both gave inspirational keynote addresses. We discussed products and tools including Google Earth & Map Maker, Flu Trends, visualization APIs, public data search, and much more.

One consistent theme was the desire to increase momentum in efforts to collaborate and share information publicly in ways that will help all U.N. agencies and other humanitarian organizations meet new challenges in an increasingly networked society. This same theme was echoed in the workshop that Google hosted in Washington DC with over 20 international humanitarian organizations last month.

Google's Map Maker Product Manager Lior Ron made two exciting announcements at the event. On the heels of our recent announcement of the Latin America Mapping competition, Google will be launching a global mapping competition in partnership with UNICEF. The competition will run December 15 - January 31, and Google will donate $50k to UNICEF that will go toward programs that empower young people through technology in the home country of the competition winner.

The other announcement is that Map Maker data for Southeast Asia is available for download for non-commercial uses. The 9 Southeast Asian countries where Map Maker is open for editing that are now included in the Map Maker download program are Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.

The Map Maker download license is available for non-profits, government agencies, and individuals to create and enhance their own non-commercial map-related projects as long as attribution is given back to Map Maker. We started this data download program with the Africa dataset over the summer. See our new Map Maker partner showcase page to learn how several United Nations agencies have used Map Maker data to further their humanitarian missions.

Posted by France Lamy, Google.org

Featured Map Maker: Mihai

Name: Mihai Voiculescu (Cartograful)
Day job: Web programmer at itbox.ro
Region mapped: Romania

Until last month, Romania wasn't on Google Maps. Users started a Facebook Cause and a Twitter Petition to get Google's attention on adding Romania to the map. "I found out about Map Maker opening in Romania over Twitter -- I follow Google Maps on Twitter," says Mihai Voiculescu. Mihai is now the #1 mapper in Romania with more than 5,000 map edits made since Google Map Maker opened in Romania in August, and as of last month many of those edits are now live in Google Maps for the world to see.

Like many mappers, Mihai started by mapping his hometown -- Târgu Jiu, the city in the southwest of Romania where sculptor Constantin Brancusi lived and where several of his large works of sculpture have become tourist attractions. From there, Mihai went on to help map Bucureşti (Bucharest) -- the video below shows how the map of Bucharest grew quickly from 5 highways to a complete city over a two week period:

Mihai runs a Romanian travel web site (itbox.ro) that uses the Google Maps API, and says that having a detailed and accurate map of Romania on Google Maps is important for local tourism. "Many people who came to Romania asked me why Romania isn't on Google. People think that Romania is empty, like a desert. Having Romania on Google Maps is a big plus." Mihai also uses Panoramio and has had some of his photos published in Google Earth; "I love the Web, programming and travel," he says.

Normally, Google Map Maker mappers use Google's satellite imagery to draw roads and locate schools, parks and businesses. When the satellite imagery isn't clear enough (due to clouds or low resolution) to trace from directly, Mihai uses a GPS device to create GPS tracks for roads or to locate hotels, then exports the tracks as KML files and uses the Map Maker Overlays feature to draw the roads and hotel locations accurately. He also uses KML files to locate hotels on the map for his travel web site.

Mihai collaborates with other Romanian mappers and co-created a Romania Map Maker discussion group. "I met these people online," says Mihai. However, he will soon be getting together with his fellow mappers in person as they have scheduled a Map Maker training event and mapping party in Bucharest at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Sciences on November 14th (a Google team member will also attend the event in person). "I want to thank all the people from Romania who contribute to build the map on Google."

Posted by Jennifer Mazzon, Maps Community Organizer

Featured Map Makers: Faraz & Jabran

Name: Faraz Ahmad (farazilu)

Day job: Web programmer

Region mapped: Pakistan

Name: Jabran Rafique (جabran)

Day job: IT administrator

Region mapped: Pakistan

Faraz and Jabran are both 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 and have never met in person, they collaborate on mapping Pakistan and providing other mappers with advice and tips on mapping the region.

Time lapse video of Gujranwala, Pakistan:

Faraz started using 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.

Time lapse video of Karachi, Pakistan:

"I spend so much time on the Internet looking at new technologies. It's like a hobby for me to develop maps -- time spent positively because I know it will help others. In Pakistan, using Map Maker to find an efficient way to get somewhere can save a life in an emergency situation," says Faraz.

Experienced and accomplished mappers with more than 70,000 map edits between them, Faraz and Jabran collaborate with many others to map the region as well. Jabran explains, "I post on the group when I finish mapping a city. A fellow who just joined recently is making some edits near Lahore, adding names to streets and local businesses. So we help each other. If one can map it and another can name it, that's great. Someday I will open Google Maps and see all of Pakistan mapped!"

In areas of Pakistan that the virtual team knows less well, they use the satellite imagery on Map Maker to draw the roads. When they meet people from Pakistan, Faraz & Jabran ask them where they are from and what areas they know. "Then I drag them to Map Maker and ask them the names of roads, shops, hospitals, whatever. We're trying to make the maps more and more elaborate. Together we can make a difference."

Jabran recalls that, one weekend, a couple of guys with local knowledge of an area sat with him as he edited the maps -- here's one small example of an addition to the map he made based on their knowledge. "Great thanks to all those many people who agree to help in such a way," says Jabran.

Living in the UK, Faraz and Jabran use Google Maps extensively, particularly on their mobile phones, to find their way around and explore new places. Through their contributions to mapping Pakistan with Google Map Maker, their goal is to help all Google Maps users in Pakistan to find their way, too. We wish both of these Map Maker "power users" all the best in their efforts to map their worlds, and look forward to seeing their goal of completing the Pakistan map fully realized!

Posted by Jennifer Mazzon, Maps Community Organizer

Map Maker goes west

Google Map Maker (mapmaker.google.com) is now open for editing in Mexico. Mexico joins an impressive list of Latin American countries spanning much of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Combined with the launch in Eastern Europe earlier this week, this launch constitutes a substantial expansion in the western hemisphere, wherein these two launches have doubled the number of users who can map their country on Map Maker.

In the last year, mappers from around the world have contributed local knowledge with everything from mapping entire countries to adding details like one-way streets to make maps drivable. We're very excited to see these new communities around the globe embrace the ability to maps their countries, such as these users, former Peace Corps volunteers now mapping in Guyana.

Posted by Lior Ron, Product lead; Lalitesh Katragadda, Tech Lead