2 - 8 August 2001
Issue No.545
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 2 - 8 August 2001 Issue No.545 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Getting there
Amira Howeidy tracks down the man who dared map Cairo, electronically
In Cairo, it's always about getting there -- without getting lost. If you've ever spent hours circling a neighbourhood trying to find a road that doesn't seem to exist, you probably longed for the same thing computer engineer Omar Nasser did when he dreamed of a comprehensive, accurate map of Cairo -- a map that would allow you to find "Ay Makan" (any place).
For most people, the city that never sleeps remains a jumble of streets and side-streets, growing more labyrinthine by the day. But when Nasser decided he was going to do something about it, he went one step further into the information age. The result -- a half- sized CD-ROM known as a "square CD" that fits in the palm of your hand -- hit newsstands and bookstores on 21 March.
Ay Makan, the product of more than a year and a half of gruelling data- collection, is Cairo's first electronic map. The small compact disc fits neatly in your pocket or wallet and is designed to help users locate any address anywhere in Cairo. It's an enticing idea, for both natives and foreigners. Who can claim they know this or that side-street, or even main streets in Zeitoun or Lazoughli? Well, this LE25 map should be the answer. But like any miracle solution, there are conditions.
For one thing, the map is only readable on Arabic enabled Windows. The map itself comes in Arabic only and you can only search streets in Arabic. The information is divided into 13 sections -- Streets, Hotels, Banks, Hospitals, Embassies, Churches and so on -- but only the "Streets" section is searchable. The rest contain scrollable short lists, which is all one needs. Also, the map supposedly covers Greater Cairo, but parts of Heliopolis and Haram are not included.
This said, several searches conducted by Al-Ahram Weekly yielded impressive results. The downside is that the map that appears with the desired location is rather blurry. And though you do get the street you're looking for, the corresponding map doesn't indicate where it is exactly. Yes, Murad Street is in Giza, and one can see that it's close to the zoo and Cairo University Street, but the precise geography of this area is just too general. This difficulty applies to Ay Makan's entire map.
Nasser doesn't claim to have offered perfection. He says that the second edition of the map, which should include all of Greater Cairo, will boast "more advanced technology." In his small office in Lazoughli (the finding of which is just one example of where Ay Makan comes in really handy), Nasser explained the pains he and his small research team went through to compile the information. "It's not easy; its far from that," Nasser told the Weekly. "Collecting data in this country is something that is just not done. The information is not available, and I had to resort to methods that I will not disclose as long as this tape recorder is recording," he said, pointing to my recorder. I switched it off, but alas, all that is off the record. Nasser allows only this much: "We had our ways to get the smallest details of every alleyway and every corner."
The big surprise was that the available print maps of our capital only cover 25 per cent of Cairo. Nasser suggests that there is little desire among Egyptian authorities to locate and document shantytowns and unplanned areas, hence making them "official" and, worse, "available for tourists to see." Nasser also estimated that some 75 per cent of existing Cairo is basically informal housing. "Can you imagine?" he marvelled. "This is another reason why most of these places aren't shown on maps."
In order to find the names of small, unknown streets, Nasser's team had to search for a name. "Even if the street or alleyway is unrecognised by the local council of the district, we found that in the end, every street has to have a name. When a child is born, for example, a birth certificate has to be issued, which has to include an address. So, in these cases, the name the street is commonly known as is the name we give the street and input in the database."
Nasser estimates the project cost him between LE25,000 and LE30,000, "but that isn't an accurate figure really. I didn't include other costs, like tips, and the huge amount of effort exerted over the past year."
But if there are one million computers in this country, according to Nasser, why aren't Egyptians buying the map? The product got a modest reception in the marketplace, "although I expect this to change," remarks Nasser, who says that better advertising and distribution should do the trick. Perhaps, but Egyptians are not accustomed to paying for software. In a country where software piracy is rampant, its no surprise that the concept of buying software remains farfetched, even if the software is cheap.
Ideally, Ay Makan is a product for anyone walking on the street or driving a car, but this kind of a target is unrealistic. Nasser expects that people who like to acquire reference books and dictionaries will be encouraged to buy the map, currently available in major supermarkets and bookshops. Cairo University, Ain Shams University and the American University in Cairo all carry it. There's also a Web site, (www.aymakan.com), which promotes the map by allowing visitors to enter new data on their addresses. When the Weekly went to print, 3,480 people had already entered information on themselves in the data base. Nasser is excited at this development. "The Web site was launched on 10 July, and so far I can see that the results have been very impressive."
He does not reveal the sales figures though. "I can't really calculate them yet, because I need to sell 100,000 CDs to be able to figure out the profit," he says. "But then again, I'm not doing this to make huge profits. On its own, the small CD that I import from the US costs LE9, and I sell the map for only LE25. That doesn't really leave much room for profit, does it?"
Ay Makan still needs better exposure, but Nasser hopes it will sell as well as other electronic guides, like EasyCall, an electronic directory that hit the stands last year and sold 500,000 copies for LE50 each. "The map should sell just as well," he argues. "Think about it. There are many ways to get a telephone number, but you can't find locations so easily."
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