Aiming to take over Google Maps and Google Earth, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has collaborated with digital mapping and location-based deep-tech company MapmyIndia to provide afully indigenous mapping portal and geospatial services.
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ISRO signs MoU to collaborate with a Delhi-based Indian company
- The alliance to offer indigenous maps and location-based services to Indian users
- Targeted to take on foreign solutions like Google Maps and Google Earth
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The portal will leverage on ISRO’s catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data and bring together MapmyIndia’s digital maps thus creating holistic geoportal solutions.MapmyIndia’s CEO and Excutive Director Rohan Verma described the collaboration as a significant milestone in India’s journey towards ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ claiming that Indians no longer need to depend on Google’s offerings as they will have their homegrown portal to go to.
MapmyIndia is a New Delhi based Indian technology company which was founded by couple Rakesh and Rashmi Verma in 1992. MapmyIndia’s parent company CE Infosystems has its presence in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and an international office in San Francisco.
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Company’s CEO stressed on the many reasons why Indians are better off with a homegrown solution for maps and geospatial services instead of international offerings. He said that MapmyIndia is a responsible, local, Indian company, which ensures that its maps reflect the true sovereignty of the countrydepicting country’s borders as per Government of India whileforeign mapping solutions come with a lot of hidden costs in the form of advertisements and user’s privacy invasion.He further alleged that foreign search engines claim to offer free maps but actually make money by targeting the same users with advertising based on invading user privacy and auctioning the users private location and movement data.
He ensured that MapmyIndia maps and applications are not based on advertising model and users can better protect their privacy vis-à-vis foreign map apps. MapmyIndias maps cover over 7.5 lakh villages, 7500+ cities at street and building-level, connected by all 63 lakh kilometres of road network pan India and within cities in total providing maps for an unparalleled 3+ crore places across India.
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The Department of Space signed an MoU (Memorandum of understanding) with CE Info Systems on Thursday and said that under the partnership, the combined geospatial expertise of the DoS and CE Info Systems would be leveraged through their respective Geoportals.In its statement, ISRO said that the alliance will enable them to jointly identify and build holistic geospatial solutions utilizing the earth observation datasets, ‘NavIC’, Web Services and APIs (application programming interface) available with MapmyIndia, ‘Bhuvan’, ‘VEDAS’ and ‘MOSDAC’ geoportals.
