Nokia HERE - The Community Mapping Program To Tap The 'Know-Where' Of Consumers In India

Nokia HERE has announced that it is launching a community mapping pilot program in India, the first major country where HERE will combine its industrial data collection methods with a crowd mapping initiative. Nokia has partnered up with local experts at more than a dozen universities like Mount Carmel College in Bangalore and the SAL Institute of Technology in Ahmedabad, asking them to feed information into the map via a tool named "Map Creator". This tool allows people to add missing streets, bridges, points of interests (POIs) and other information to the map, these local experts can share insider knowledge of the areas they know like the back of their hand and, in turn, put their communities on the map. The changes will be moderated by HERE and the community at large, who will need to verify the edits before they'e implemented into the live map.

Nokia claims that HERE is used in four out of five in-car navigation systems in North America and Europe, as well as on phones across the world. "HERE, the world's leading mapping platform, aims to comprehensively and accurately map one of the most geographically diverse countries: India," said Neil Shah, Research Director, Counterpoint Research. "HERE will employ its global crowdsourcing pilot program to tap the expert 'know-where' of a billion Indian consumers. This initiative will help HERE gain a sizeable competitive edge with broader and denser mapping coverage in one of the most multi-faceted geographies globally."


In smaller towns and cities, locals will help HERE build out road networks, while in densely populated areas contributors will provide information about points of interest and capture changes. HERE has already rolled out industrial capture methods in some of these areas, but local communities can further improve and humanize HERE Maps. The project in India is part of an ongoing series of pilot programs that HERE is using to enhance its community mapping capabilities and tap the knowledge of local experts.

To maintain accuracy and ensure map quality, HERE has built a community map moderation system that allows both our HERE team as well as the community at large to verify edits before integrating them into the base map. Once integrated, these changes will become available within days to all users across the wide range of HERE customers, including automakers, personal navigation device manufactures, mobile device makers and web and enterprise clients. "In vibrant, fast-growing countries like India a community mapping approach, paired with input from the right experts, means HERE can keep pace with the ever-evolving landscape so that our maps are never obsolete," HERE's EVP Michael Halbherr said in a statement.

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