Zimbabwe Photographer Finally Puts Zimbabwe On Google Maps Street View

Tawanda Kanhema a local photographer has made the country proud after he embarked on a solo initiative to put Zimbabwe on Google Maps’ Street View service.
IBOM TV has established from a local publication that, Tawanda Kanhema prompted by the challenges he faced whilst trying to navigate Zimbabwe, decided to work on putting Zimbabwe on Google Street View. Prior to his efforts, Zimbabwe was totally absent from Google street view which made it difficult for tourists and even locals to navigate across the country.

Tawanda Kanhema: Photographer Puts Zimbabwe on Google Map

Noticing how difficult it was to navigate without Google maps, Kanhema began working on putting Zimbabwe on Google Street View.   Speaking in an interview Kanhema said that,

“When I began, back in 2016 I have been in the States for about eight years and I was going back to Zimbabwe maybe once a year, so the one thing that struck me going back and forth is the dramatic discrepancies in a digital platform, the kind of technology people used when getting around.’’

He wanted to develop the kind of technology that would help people get around. He added that,

“That discrepancy was probably most described in mapping technology, like estimate how long it will take you getting from point A to point B and being in Africa I have always thought that estimate is so inaccurate. So I was looking for something that I can do improve that.”
“That processes took me about two years but the actual mapping on the ground took me 14 days,” he said. Kanhema talks of the importance of these digital platforms which he says connect the marginalized communities to the rest of the world.

He is so happy that after such a long time he managed to use the power of photography to put Zimbabwe on the Google maps.

“It feels amazing that people are actually using these maps, I see maps as a proxy for what we care about, places, place names, we are thinking about communities that have been left in these platforms, we are thinking of connecting these communities to the rest of the world.”