My journey mapping the uncharted world Tawanda Kanhema
Transcriber: Joseph Geni
Reviewer: Camille Martínez
A few years back,
my friend’s dad asked me to show him
my mom’s house on the map.
I knew we didn’t have
Street View in Zimbabwe yet,
but I looked anyway,
and of course, we couldn’t find it.
When you look at most mapping platforms,
you will find that parts
of the African continent
are largely missing.
And I’ve wondered:
Is it the people?
Is it the technology?
Or is it the terrain?
For nearly a billion people
on the continent,
it’s an accepted reality
that certain technologies
are just not built for us.
When Cyclone Idai flattened
parts of Mozambique,
Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2019,
killing 1,300 people and displacing
hundreds of thousands of others,
it left more than just destruction.
It left a new awareness
of the consequences of omission
in the way we build technology.
As rescue workers arrived in the region
in search of survivors,
we learned that thousands
of displaced people
were in unmapped areas,
making it difficult to reach them
with much-needed food
and medical supplies.
There was no accurate accounting
of what had been lost.
For those in unmapped areas,
a natural disaster often means
no one will come to find you.
Thankfully, as the tools used
to build some of the maps we use today
become more easily accessible,
we can be part of the solution.
Anyone with a computer or a cell phone
can play a role in improving
the representation of communities
that are missing accurate maps.
In two weeks,
I photographed 2,000 miles of Zimbabwe,
and with every single mile I captured,
I got closer to an answer
and a better sense of what it means
to not be on the map.
As I started to prepare
for my mapping journey,
I learned that while many
of the maps we use today
are built on proprietary technology,
the pieces that make up that canvas
often have open-source origins.
I could combine those pieces
with off-the-shelf products
to build maps that are accessible
on both commercial
and open-source platforms.
I started with a very rudimentary setup:
a 360-degree action camera
stuck outside the window
of my brother’s car.
After capturing a few dozen
miles of city streets,
I borrowed a proper camera
from the Street View camera loan program,
allowing me to capture
high-resolution imagery,
complete with location, speed
and other vital layers of data.
I adapted that camera
to sit on a backpack I could carry,
and with the help
of a few more contraptions,
we were able to mount it
to the dash of a helicopter,
the bow of a speedboat
and the hood of an all-terrain vehicle.
My journey started at Victoria Falls,
one of the seven
natural wonders of the world,
and then I headed east
to the 11th-century city
of Great Zimbabwe,
before retracing my footprints home,
finally putting my hometown on the map.
And yet, much of the region
remains all but invisible
on some of the most widely used
mapping platforms.
Beyond navigation,
maps are a proxy for what we care about.
They tell us about the quality
of the air we breathe,
the potential for
renewable energy solutions
and the safety of our streets.
These lines retrace
the journeys we’ve taken.
In a sense, maps
are a form of storytelling.
When you look at the state of mapping
on the African continent today,
you’ll find a patchwork of coverage,
often driven by humanitarian need
in the wake of natural disasters,
rather than by deliberate
and sustained efforts
to build out digital infrastructure
and improve overall service delivery.
What the continent is lacking
are maps that tell the story
of how people live,
work
and spend time,
illuminating environmental
and social issues.
With more than 600 million cell phones
in the hands of people
between Cape Town and Cairo
and centers of innovation
in the cities in between,
this is achievable.
Every single one of those devices,
in the hands of a contributor
to an open-source mapping platform,
becomes a powerful source of imagery
that forms a vital layer of data on maps.
With virtual maps,
mapping is no longer
just about cartography.
It’s become a way to preserve places
that are undergoing constant
and sometimes dramatic change.
High-resolution imagery
turns maps into a living canvas
on which we can instantly experience
the rhythm and visual
iconography of a city,
often from thousands of miles away.
City planners are able
to measure traffic density
or pick out problem intersections,
and in the case of Northern Ontario,
where I mapped ice roads in partnership
with the local government,
you can now explore
500 miles of winter roads
along the western edge of the James Bay.
Every winter, after 10 days
of minus 20-degree temperatures,
engineers begin the work
to build the road of the season.
These roads only exist for 90 days,
connecting communities
across hundreds of miles of frozen tundra.
Being on the winter roads
of Northern Ontario
after mapping parts of Namibia,
one of the warmest places on the planet,
exposed me to the many ways
in which communities are using maps
to understand the pace and impact
of changes in the environment.
So after mapping 3,000 miles in Zimbabwe,
Namibia and Northern Ontario
and publishing nearly
half a million images to Street View,
reaching more than
26 million people on Maps,
I know it’s not the technology,
it’s not the people,
and it’s clearly not the terrain.
Every other day,
I hear from scientists who are using maps
to understand how our built environment
influences health outcomes,
teachers using virtual reality
in the classroom
and humanitarian workers using maps
to protect the vulnerable.
A dad wrote to me to say
he’d finally been able to show his girls
the house in which he grew up
and the hospital in which
he was born, in Harare.
Think about the last time
you gave directions to a stranger.
When we contribute to connected maps,
we’re giving directions to millions.
And that stranger may be
the occasional tourist,
a researcher,
a first responder,
a rescue worker working
in unfamiliar terrain.
As we begin to think about
how to bridge the digital divide,
we should go beyond
the traditional narrative
of data extraction and consumption
and think more critically
about the role you and I play
in the creation of the technologies
and tools we use every day.
The goal is not to map
every inch of the planet,
but to spare a moment to think about
where those tools are most needed,
the consequences of our mission
and the role you and I can play
in filling those gaps
and building a more connected world
together.
Thank you.