Introducing Google Street View Coverage in underdeveloped and developing countries starting with Mauritius

Fundraising campaign by Hansraj Ramjattan
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Introducing Google Street View Coverage in underdeveloped and developing countries starting with Mauritius

Google Street View is a technology featuring in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive 360° street-level panoramic imagery around the world.

Street view 360° interactive images taken along public streets allow users to replicate an in-person eye-level experience and virtually walk down a street.

Understanding and navigating around our immediate environment is a vital part of daily life and economic activity. A key part of this is the ability to understand what facilities are available at different locations and how we can most effectively move between places. Nowadays, since people are travelling further and more often, the ability to easily plan and go on business and recreational journeys to unfamiliar destinations is crucial. These are essential components of the impact of Google Street View Coverage in underdeveloped and developing countries.

With Street View, public space will always be within reach, no matter where you are.

To access a sample interactive 360° Google Street View capture by our company, MAGNAR Ltd, along Congomah Road, Jouvance, D'Epinay, Mauritius, please follow following link: Interactive 360° Google Street View Capture by MAGNAR Ltd Interactive 360° Google Street View Capture by MAGNAR Ltd on all Web Browsers e.g. Google Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge.

Google Street View was launched on May 25, 2007, and has gradually expanded to include more cities and also rural areas. However, Google has not officially planned to cover street view in many underdeveloped and developing countries including Mauritius for the foreseeable future.

Google Street View’s 360° images comes from two sources - Google and voluntary contributors. We are aiming to capture large scale collections of 360° street-level imagery at highest possible resolution in Mauritius for publication to the Google Street View platform for free access to the general public and boost Mauritius to the forefront of virtual technology.

With full coverage of Google Street View in in underdeveloped and developing countries, we are committed to creating a rich, deep, and detailed understanding of our surroundings. Digitizing and providing access to a wealth of information about the real world, will allow people to easily explore the world around them, provide tools for businesses to attract and connect with customers, power road maps and location experiences for third party apps and websites, and enable NGOs and governments to leverage Google Street View and resources to tackle real-world challenges like urban planning or emergency response.


Who we are?

MAGNAR Ltd is a Mapping company incorporated in Mauritius. We collaborate with global partners to support our clients with Next Generation Geospatial Asset Management Solutions across a diverse range of industry sectors.

MAGNAR produces three-dimensional mapping data for almost any environment, both Indoor and Outdoor.

We have been acknowledged as Google Maps Google Street View Trusted in Mauritius and feature in Google Street View index of for-hire professionals. Google certifies only those who achieve Google image quality standards in their work with a large portfolio of projects carried out, evidencing their capture and publishing proficiency.


To view MAGNAR Ltd 360° Outdoor Mapping demo video, please follow the following link:

For more insight into our company, please access our corporate website through the following link: magnar.io/

Our company has also developed an open-source web application called MAGNAR-iMMERSE, a cloud-based solution for street-level imagery with survey-grade accuracy to inspect public spaces remotely.

MAGNAR-iMMERSE is the application for local municipalities, governmental institutions, road authorities, and utility companies that require a wide range of spatial data together with visual intelligence for a measurable understanding of urban and rural environments in augmented reality on the desktop pc or laptop, phone or tablet.

Key benefits of 360° Mapping with MAGNAR-iMMERSE:

A better understanding of the required work for a tender,

Identify objects in public space for effective asset management,

Effective large-scale road inspection & short and long-term road maintenance planning,

Prevent failure costs through efficient work preparation,

Monitor status and communicate schedule, cost, and quality of active projects, and

Collaboration, coordination, invoicing and further Maintenance Management and Analytical workflows.

Our application is available on the following link: http://magnar-immerse.com/

We have authorized access with the following login credentials for your appreciation of the application.

Username: magnar

Password: magnar@123

To view a MAGNAR-iMMERSE demo video, please follow the following link:


Our Goal

Google does not fund or employ any agencies to collect imagery for publication on Google Street View platform. Our goal, by launching this crowdfunding campaign, is to gather funds for the acquisition of required technology to capture large scale collections of 360° street-level imagery at highest possible resolution.


Benefits of Google Street View Coverage in in underdeveloped and developing countries – Short Version (Elaborated Version below)

From an economic perspective, Google Street View Coverage helps businesses and consumers connect with each other more easily, increasing welfare for consumers by reducing the cost of searching, and increasing competition and choice in many markets.

By facilitating the functioning of businesses, Google Street View Coverage helps to drive efficiency gains throughout the economy.

Google Street View Coverage also affects the wider economy by helping to change the breadth of markets and thereby promote consumer choice. By reducing transport costs and increasing information to consumers, Google Street View can broaden both product and geographic markets. Making markets wider is not typically seen as a goal in itself, but it can help to promote efficiency and cost savings through increased competition in many markets. This ultimately drives prices down towards costs, benefiting consumers.

Overall, the benefits of Google Street View Coverage are varied; for some consumers, they can literally be life-saving; while for others, they simply take away some of the hassles of daily life.

The efficiency gains Google Street View Coverage creates are helping to facilitate economic activity and generate additional consumer welfare.


Our Pledge

The total road network in Mauritius stood at 2,350 km as at April 2018. We pledge to capture 360º georeferenced images along the total road network of Mauritius and publish to the Google Street View platform for free access to the general public.


We make an appeal to the community and corporate companies to donate funds to help us boost underdeveloped and developing countries to the forefront of virtual technology.


What happens if we exceed our funding goal?

If your contributions exceed our funding goal, we will initiate capture of 360º georeferenced images along the total road network of the country selected by our crowdfunding campaign backers.


Risks and challenges

What if we don’t succeed? The campaign will be anyway flexible, meaning that even if we do not reach our funding goal, we will work according to the funding we manage to collect.


Sponsors and Partner Organisations

We invite Businesses and Organisations interested in our effort to become distinguished sponsors of our crowdfunding campaign and demonstrate their commitment to support innovation in underdeveloped and developing countries.

Sponsors and Partner Organisations will able to leverage on the outstanding visibility, recognition and value the campaign provides. Trademark of supporting Businesses and Partner organisations will be placed at the base of all 360° imagery captured and published to Google Street View platform.


Other Ways You Can Help

We understand that some might not have the means to contribute, but that doesn't mean they can't help:

Share our campaign online on social media

Spread the word about our project


Benefits of Google Street View Coverage in underdeveloped and developing countries – Elaborated Version

Logistics Services

Google Street View as a service make navigation more intuitive for the delivery partner and traceability more visible for the user. This results in greater efficiency on the platform's turnaround time - a core proposition for any hyperlocal logistics business.

It is important to make sure your packages get to the right place, and having accurate address information is essential for reducing returned packages due to delivery errors. Google Street View Platform can be used to improve your operations, minimize delivery errors for locations that do not have accurate or official addresses and help you operate more efficiently. Use Google Street View to display images of the drop off location to the driver, so he or she knows exactly where to stop and what the entrance looks like before they arrive, saving time at the drop off.

No benefit is worth having if it is not getting extended to the community at large. The benefits that Google Street View extend to the community can best be categorized into consumer benefits, business benefits and societal benefits.

Consumer benefits

Google Street View helps people move in a faster and more efficient way. For example, not only does Google Street View reduce travel time, they also help people plan routes in areas they are not familiar with, street view also improves public safety.

Since many consumers access Google Street View at no cost, the efficiency and welfare impact of these services is likely to be significant. These measures are likely to include, but not be limited to the following:

time/financial savings from not getting lost during a journey and better planning when driving in an unfamiliar area to an unfamiliar destination;

educational value from the availability of maps even when not used for navigation;

the use of Google Street View to reduce search costs, for example when assessing holiday destinations or buying a house (e.g., a user can look at a neighborhood in advance without travelling to each house);

the use of ‘local search’ to reduce search costs when looking for a supplier or service provider. Consumers identify services that are not easy to find, providing consumers with options of different services. Thus, consumers derive benefits from finding niche offerings that they would otherwise not find.

Business benefits

Through Google Street View, businesses can also connect directly with customers and thus achieve higher growth.

Google Street View helps make small and large businesses more visible, productive and profitable and help drive sales - particularly important for small businesses that may find potential new customers without incurring additional advertising costs. Retail companies use Google Street View for market research and to identify the most profitable locations for their network of stores.

Google Street View decreases the entropy in finding the right building, spot, and exact pinpointed location and transforms the way we navigate, transact, and search, thus improving the delivery and ecommerce experience.

Street View puts your business on Google Maps with pictures of your business. Offering potential customers, the ability to take a virtual view of your business, both inside and out, has its benefits.

Google’s Street View and virtual tours are the tools for expanding this customer interest and decision-making. According to research, businesses with these complete search listings are 29 percent more likely to motivate customers to consider purchasing from and visiting the business.

Societal benefits

Google Street View coverage also help governments to connect strongly with their citizens and overcome geographical hurdles.

Google Maps and Google Street View have become powerful tools for policymakers as well as businesses to guide economic development and take economies to the higher levels of efficiency.

Neighborhoods that have already developed tend to develop further. With Google Street View, the general public can identify changes in public spaces, examine and evaluate developments over years with Google Street View "Go Back in Time feature" as illustrated on the following link from our service partner: Gainesville: Growing Forward

Google Street View help save lives with faster emergency response to e.g. cardiac arrests for ambulances. Small time savings can make the difference between life and death in some emergency situations.

Street View can also play a role in emergencies - such as helping people prepare for a natural disaster by highlighting flood-risk areas and showing best evacuation routes.

Capture of 360° georeferenced images is crucial for Disaster response documentation to swiftly identify the most affected areas for targeted investment of resources and captured data is used to improve best practice in relief efforts.

For an overview of collection of 360º imaging in disaster management done by our service partner, Site Tour 360 based in Gainesville, Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in 2018, please follow the following links: Hurricane Damage Assessment: Before & After

Google Street View has positive effects on the environment and societies around the world - for example, by emission reductions from fuel savings through more efficient vehicle trips and easier identification of alternative transportation options, health and safety gains, time savings, job creation, and improved safety and national defense.

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US$0.00
raised of $150,000.00 goal
0% Funded
0 Donors

No more donations are being accepted at this time. Please contact the campaign owner if you would like to discuss further funding opportunities