MapIT has become the first service provider in Africa to adopt the mapcode system that provides a short address for any location on Earth.
Kewal Shienmar, MD of Mapcode Foundation, explains that mapcode is a new standard for representing locations. It is designed for public, everyday use – and it’s brand new.
Mapcodes arise from the problem of billions of people across the globe not having an address. Although this is more of an issue in developing countries, it cause problems for travel, postage, deliveries and emergency services everywhere.
“What we do it we take the GPS co-ordinates, and return it in a mapcode,” he explains. An example is the Bytes Conference Centre, where the TomTom User Conference was held, is PC2HN.
“This lends a human face to co-ordinates; it is a man to man code, rather than man to machine,” Shrienmar adds.
Locations anywhere on earth need at most nine characters, he says. However, in-country the code wouldn’t need to include the country, so it would be fewer characters. In South Africa, addresses have a seven-character code, while smaller countries have six or even five character. Within cities, the code will be just four character.
The codes are generated using a standard algorithm that can include a large data table, Shrienmar says. The whole mapcode is compressed into 200kb and could even reside on a smart watch.
“In summary, a mapcode is a short address for any location on earth – even where it doesn’t have an address.
“It is designed to last for the next 50 years without a change,” Shrienmar adds.
The mapcode was developed by TomTom, but is managed by the non-profit organisation Mapcode Foundation, which is working to make it ubiquitous. “We want other companies to adopt mapcodes,” Shrienmar says. “We have been in discussion with other players and so far the reception has been good. In order for mapcodes to succeed, we need everyone to use them.”
The Mapcode Foundation is working to make mapcodes a standard and is talking to the ISO (International Standard Organisation) about this.
“Our vision is to go forward and invite others – we have invited Garmin and Nokia and will extend to Google – to join us. We are busy setting up a user group as well.
“Already TomTom has taken the step to support mapcodes. It is on 60-million devices, which are ready to start using mapcodes.”