USE CASE: When a contagious virus breaks out in a rural and densely populated area, a rapid, simple and coordinated response is vital to stopping it from spreading. The precise and simple communication of the virus hot spot locations and where food, water and medical assistance need to be distributed are a key part of the response.
what3words is a simple, real-time, location referencing system which solves many of the key logistical issues facing aid and humanitarian organisations, for whom street addresses, GPS co-ordinates, and other systems are problematic.
what3words uses 3 everyday words to describe a 3mx3m square anywhere on the planet, in any language. It's a geocoder; an algorithm that turns geographic coordinates into 3 word sequences and vice-versa.
Using words means normal non-technical people can find any location accurately but, most importantly, communicate it quicker; more easily and with less ambiguity than any other system. More features details below.
Using what3words to help manage a virus outbreak
Communication is the number one barrier when managing a humanitarian situation like a virus outbreak.
Kate is a health care worker for the UN. She is a 38-year-old doctor, speaks English and French but not the local language. She has had no formal training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and she is not used to dealing with GPS co-ordinates. However, she knows how to operate a smartphone.
With what3words Kate can immediately start collecting spatial or geographic information. As she visits each household to conduct her initial case assessment, she communicates urgent needs back to base camp by SMSing the precise 3-word location.
Attempting to record information on her device and tending to a sick child she types in stared.stew.firsts incorrectly. The automatic error detection realises that she does not mean stared.stew.firsts (a location in Brazil), but stared.stew.first in Sierra Leone where she currently is. It prompts her to confirm.
At base camp her partner agencies that receive this information can now start making better informed decisions and deploying resources accordingly.
A health centre location is sent to Kate from base camp, and even though there is a poor data connection she can navigate there via what3words’ offline compass.
Incoming aid teams receive a simple 10 minutes briefing on what3words and can proceed without delays. Local response teams, UN agencies, NGOs and the government all use what3words as their common spatial reference system.
Physical maps are printed along with the 3 word addresses of important points of interest. Now the local response team can communicate what is needed at each location to anyone. They can quickly identify points of interest and navigate to them. Kate writes the 3 word address on the side of each house she visits.
A 3 word address is also given to each family treated. When they visit the health centre they provide their 3 word address. They also use what3words to report new outbreaks and urgent needs via SMS and phone. The affected community is now an active part of the solution.
Effective communication of a location leads to the effective management of an outbreak.
About what3words:
what3words is the best way to simply communicate a precise location. what3words is a giant grid of 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares that covers the entire globe. Each square has been been given a 3 word address, allowing people to find more accurately and communicate more quickly, any location on earth.
It's a tiny piece of code that works across platforms and devices. It works offline, where there is no data connection and it works with voice recognition and in multiple languages, including Russian, Turkish & shortly, Swahili.
The applications are many and around the world what3words is being integrated into navigation systems, couriers, property search & used by aid agencies & travel solutions.
A flexible tool - what3words complements existing systems & processes. It works across most platforms and can be used with any GPS handheld device, data collection application or mapping tool (Esri, Pitney Bowes, Hexagon, Mapbox, CartoDB and many others).
Immediate implementation - it already exists so can be implemented without having to create something new. If what3words is not already integrated into some of the systems being used on the ground, the technical integration is very quick.
Cost saving - the 3 words are already pre-allocated for the entire world, therefore there is no need to survey, map, assign and integrate a new addressing system.
Local empowerment – what3words is currently in most languages, so using familiar words in a local language allows the affected community to be part of the immediate solution.
Easy to use – words can be spoken, written, sent via SMS, emailed or even sent via Morse code. Misspellings can be automatically spotted and easily corrected.
Consistent - in any humanitarian context there are multiple players: the United Nations agencies, Non Governmental Organisations, government, volunteer technology communities (VTC) and civil society organisations (CSOs). Using what3words as a standard for spatial referencing can increase operational uniformity not just locally but globally.
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