WYR - Where You Are
No formal housing, no way to find you
So many Africans do not live in formal housing and therefore also don’t have a formal address.
This excludes them from simple services such as getting items delivered to their door, to critical services if they need to be found by emergency services.
Solving this challenge with just three words
To address this issue, no pun intended, we will leveraging off the concept created by What3Words where they divided the whole world in 3m by 3m squares. Each of those squares has been assigned a unique three-word combination.
So why not just use GPS coordinates?
GPS or Global Positioning System is an excellent method to pinpoint a specific location.
So how simple is it to remember these coordinates? Also, there are three common formats for coordinates that you can use.
To illustrate the difference between What3Words and GPS coordinates let see which address format for Andela’s Headoffice would you prefer to remember off by heart:
| Type | Format | Andela in Lagos Nigeria |
|---|---|---|
| Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | DDD° MM’ SS.S” | 6°33’13.5”N 3°21’59.5”E |
| Degrees and Decimal Minutes | DDD° MM.MMM’ | 6° 33.2257 ‘N 3° 21.9924 ‘E |
| Decimal Degrees | DDD.DDDDD° | 6.553762, 3.366540 |
| What3Words | /// | ///slurs.magnets.extra |
Which one wat the easiest for you to memorise? What3Words is simple and there is only one format so it can be confusing like with the GPS formats.
Want to find out What3Words constitute your address or a favourite meeting spot? Click here to test it out
How we can use the tech to find out ‘where you are’
- Demo - Emergency services
- Other possible applications
- Tourism spots
- Delivery/logistics