In the age of GPS, navigating in a new area is a piece of cake. All you need is a smartphone or a PND and an address. Now which one of the two, do you think is the more troublesome part? Hint: It has nothing to do with a battery.
Addressing the world with 3 words!
One of the everyday life things that a vast of majority of us take for granted – is a proper postal addressing system. Over 2/3 of the countries in the world lack a proper address system and this means millions and millions of people are living without one of the most fundamental metadata about ourselves – address!
What3Words is changing that with 3 words and to learn more about that I spoke to Gary Gale, the CTO of W3W (and a GeoGeek in every sense of the word). *Let’s dive right in!
You have extensive experience in the Geo world (BBC, HERE, Yahoo, Ordnance Survey…) and are a #GeoGeek. You have been with W3W since July this year, how did Chris (CEO of W3W) manage to get you onboard to change the world with a new addressing system?
To be honest, I didn’t “get” the concept at first. My head was firmly in the space of “we don’t need another unique geographic identifier”.
But then shortly after I first met Chris, I went to India for a week and found myself at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi trying to explain to a taxi driver that the address of my hotel was “Ring Road, New Delhi”.
Then I got the concept.
The journey which should have taken 35 minutes took two and a half hours. We were constantly stopping to ask for directions along the way and I was never really sure if we going to the right place. A fellow geo-geek at the GeoBLR meeting in Bengaluru later joked to me that in India, GPS often stands for General Populace System!
Since that day I watched what3words grow, saw the potential applications in both developing and developed countries for both individuals and businesses.
When Chris approached me I jumped at the chance to join the team as CTO. The opportunity to change the world with 3 simple words was just too great to resist.
<h5 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3366ff;"><strong>Looks like India also provides answers to “GeoGeek” questions
Addressing the world with 3 words!
One of the everyday life things that a vast of majority of us take for granted – is a proper postal addressing system. Over 2/3 of the countries in the world lack a proper address system and this means millions and millions of people are living without one of the most fundamental metadata about ourselves – address!
What3Words is changing that with 3 words and to learn more about that I spoke to Gary Gale, the CTO of W3W (and a GeoGeek in every sense of the word). *Let’s dive right in!
You have extensive experience in the Geo world (BBC, HERE, Yahoo, Ordnance Survey…) and are a #GeoGeek. You have been with W3W since July this year, how did Chris (CEO of W3W) manage to get you onboard to change the world with a new addressing system?
To be honest, I didn’t “get” the concept at first. My head was firmly in the space of “we don’t need another unique geographic identifier”.
But then shortly after I first met Chris, I went to India for a week and found myself at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi trying to explain to a taxi driver that the address of my hotel was “Ring Road, New Delhi”.
Then I got the concept.
The journey which should have taken 35 minutes took two and a half hours. We were constantly stopping to ask for directions along the way and I was never really sure if we going to the right place. A fellow geo-geek at the GeoBLR meeting in Bengaluru later joked to me that in India, GPS often stands for General Populace System!
Since that day I watched what3words grow, saw the potential applications in both developing and developed countries for both individuals and businesses.
When Chris approached me I jumped at the chance to join the team as CTO. The opportunity to change the world with 3 simple words was just too great to resist.
<h5 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3366ff;"><strong>Looks like India also provides answers to “GeoGeek” questions