Google Mapping Party, Lahore and Me

Many of my readers and friends have told me that my blog posts have become event based now, and those who did not sad that must have noticed it. However I can only say that yes for a while I am attending and blogging about events mostly, all thanks to face book which let me know about events, but I am still AZLAN, the same Azlan who claim that he can talk about anything. Now if I can talk than it's not that hard to write about anything.

Now let me share another experience of mine which I had at an event this past Saturday at Fast- National University, Lahore Campus. It was “Lahore Mapping Party” organized by Google. As I said before all the events I am attending are because of Face Book which gives me the information of all these events and sometimes twitter helps me too. This event came into my information through tweet of Haris Nadeem, I guess, and the whole info I got from Face Book.

I reached the campus without forgetting and missing the way because I was accompanied by my Lala (younger Brother), as he was also going in the same location but not FAST. After fulfilling all the requirements for getting into the hall where it all was going to happen I got my Participant Card after waiting for I guess 15 minuets, but its not a problem as I get used to these little things.

Event was supposed to start at 12:30 PM but it seemed as the whole atmosphere was proving that this event was taking place in Pakistan. I met a friend of mine; ABAIDULLLAH from Hailey College of Commerce, University of Punjab; who is now doing his MBA at FAST. As soon as the event started he left the auditorium saying that he do not fit in such places.

It was for the third time I met Syed Hassan Talal, and after all those meetings I have stared considering him as a friend, by the way we have never been enemy :P. The event started and I don't remember the time when it started but I swear that it started somehow but after the time which was started. Mr. Khuram, Assistant Professor FAST; kicked start the event and gave a brief introduction of what we were going to experience in a while and also described the whole roadmap of the party.

Mr. Baddar Khushnood, Country Consultant of Google.com, came next it was bit hard for me to recognize Baddar bhai as I have only seen his picture on face book, he himself revealed the reason of his new look and it was Hajj, I forgot to congratulate him for achieving this landmark and now I am taking the opportunity to do what I forgot, Baddar Bhai if you are reading this; “many congratulations on performing Hajj and May Allah bless you in every field of life.”

Baddar Bhai revealed some real amazing news as he said that Lahore is the fastest Mapped city on the Google Map Maker and Islamabad is the cleanest Mapped City, cleanest means mapped without a single error. He also described the past, present and future of this very tool. He also involved Mr. Monis Rehman, CEO of rozee.pk and he let us all know what his prospective is about this tool as he is also running a website called naqsha.pk which is almost the same thing which Google map is but it is being used more by the teleco than others. Mr. Imran Hussain also got chance to present his point.

In this session I also came to know that Faraz and Jahanzib are one of the Best Mappers in the world and Faraz did 48,000+ points on the map manually which make him, if I am not wrong, leading mapper in the world. Another interesting fact was that the first thing ever mapped on Google map maker in Lahore was the Khoka (a small shop of cigarettes and PAN) which is in front of FAST campus.

The three main advantages of Google Maps are:
1. The are fresh maps
2. They help the commerce and tourism of a place
3. And a few people/mappers are helping almost 170 million people.

Omer Sheikh and Faraz were the two mappers on the spot to demonstrate how it actually works and to share their experiences, that why they started it and how they do mapping work. During this presentation some questions were raised and one of the questions was quite valid that why cant we involve the government in this work as they have a huge data which it can share and eventually government is one of the user of this tool and this question was by Hassan Talal.

Dr. Anees, Punjab University Architect Department, raised the point that what is the gain to the mapper who is putting his efforts and time to do this job and on the other hand Google is enjoying the benefits. And he also said that the information we put on maps can also be used to attack anywhere even a man who is sitting in his drawing room. This question took the whole discussion to another end and a debate was started. Now I don't want to narrate that what actually happened during the debate, but I liked a comment as one guy said why we only think about Drone attacks why we can't catch a government officer, who enjoys bribery, on the spot.

After the discussion there was a presentation by Mr. Khurram, Assistant Professor FAST and Miss. Sarah Ahmad, Lecturer Beconhouse National University. Both of them presented the importance of such tool and how it can be helpful in Urban Development and they also described, the future prospects of such tool and the positive aspects which it can drop on Pakistan.

After that there was a lab session for everyone who wanted to try the mapping. I did not attend the lab as I was busy in taking reviews of the attendants (video will be here soon), and networking with the people present there. The high tea was nice as I was not having lunch that time so I really enjoyed it.

It was nice meeting Rafail (sorry if I am spelling the name wrong), Adnan Bhai, Iftikhar, Monis Rehman, Baddar Bhai, Aftab Arif, Hassan Talal and Rohan (the green and white fame). We all kept talking and networking till the University literally asked us to leave the place. As a whole it was nice event and I really enjoyed it and it was great meeting so many good people and if I forgot to mention name of any one I am sorry, please forgive me for that.

Picures Courtesy:Syed Hassan Talal