JACQUELINE RAJUAI: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Social
Inclusion track here at the Geo for Good Summit.
I'm Jackie Rajuai, and I'm the go-to-market's Program Manager,
Plus Codes.
I joined Google back in 2007, fresh from university,
when Google was opening one of the first offices in Africa,
here in Kenya where I'm coming to you from today.
We have a daunting task of building
Google Maps for Africa, which we did, beginning with Kenya
and expanding across the continent.
As we built the maps, various underserved communities
reached out to us, wanting to be represented on maps.
And I specifically remember a community group from Korogocho,
who we partner with through Internews.
Now, Korogocho is one of the largest informal housing
settlements here in Kenya.
We worked with this group, training them
on how to add their roads, points of interest, et cetera,
onto Google Maps.
And they went out and mapped their community.
What stayed with me during that experience
was how large of an impact this had on them,
because this was the very first time
they were represented on any map.
Google is committed to continuing
to make inclusion a part of everything that we do.
And here in the Geo team, we are embracing inclusion
in the products we build and how we
engage with users, making sure no one is missing from the map.
In today's track, we will focus on three areas.
First, addresses for everyone.
Plus Codes is a solution built to address
the billions of people who either don't have an address
or have poorly functioning addresses.
We have partnered with and continue to partner
with governments and nonprofits, who
are leveraging this digital addressing solution to tackle
the challenges of lacking a conventional address.
Today in the address with the Plus Codes panel,
you'll hear from two of our non-profit partners
in India and South Africa who have
deployed Plus Code addresses in the communities
that they work with.
And you'll also hear about the impact
that these addresses have had on these communities.
You will also get an in-depth look
at what it takes to run an on-ground addressing operation
from my colleagues, Ankush and Rohan.
The second focus area will be indigenous mapping.
In the past decade, we've been proud to partner with leading
organizations on initiatives such as indigenous mapping
workshop and the new technologies
and traditional peoples program.
These programs have trained thousands
of indigenous people and local communities
to map and monitor their lands.
The tools like Google Earth and My Maps
that we teach during these trainings
help lower the barrier of access to mapmaking.
Indigenous communities are using these tools
to create maps that reflect their asset values,
and are using these maps to also support and strengthen
cultural preservation and decision-making about land
management.
Today, in the Indigenous People & Local Communities panel,
you'll hear how communities are using these mapping tools
and training to ensure their voices
and values are heard, from strengthening land
rights to ecological restoration,
to cleaning up toxic waste sites.
The third area of focus would be accessibility.
At Geo, we are looking to provide equal access to Maps
and Earth for people with disabilities, using
screen readers and other assistive technology
as well as equitable features for people
in disability communities to navigate and explore the world,
just like non-disabled people do.
Some highlights in this space include
the cities for all designs print,
with WAN enabled, to help cities assess
their accessibility environment as well as
the launch of hearing loops, where community-provided data
is used to help deaf and hard-of-hearing users find
places that support assistive listening devices.
Today, you'll hear our partners, together
with my colleagues from Google Maps and Google Travel teams,
explore the topic of disability equity.
We also received topic proposals from the community, which
we have featured as Lightning Talks
and are part of today's program.
Do interact with us in the Q&A section below this video
or during the scheduled live Q&A session.
I hope you're looking forward to hearing from all these people
who are working to make Maps and their act of mapping
more inclusive.
Thank you, and stay tuned.