Vodacom is expanding its location-based mobile social network to include the locations of all police stations and driving centres in SA.
This follows last week's Vodacom announcement, where the telco giant revealed it has mapped out 11 000 HIV-related support centres across the country.
According to the company, the Grid's location-aware technology features information on the centres' addresses, contact details and directions.
Driving HIV/Aids awareness
Four months ago, Vodacom started working with the HIV-911 programme to gather information from HIV-911's HIV/Aids support service data base, and make this information accessible to millions of South Africans equipped with a WAP-enabled cellphone.
Vincent Maher, Vodacom portfolio manager for social networking, says the Grid is going to be a long-term project for Vodacom, which will eventually extend to mapping out police stations. Maher adds that Vodacom has already linked all the K53 driving centres in the country.
Maher explains: “It's an ongoing process and we will be continuously updating the information. Linking to police stations is on the agenda, and we are constantly looking for partners to source that data. We are looking for any kind of information that we can give to our users to help them in terms of healthcare and security.”
Maher adds that Vodacom is currently looking for partners to expand The Grid technology to restaurants and entertainment venues: “Mapping out the HIV centres was our first priority, and now we want to expand our reach to the police, driving centres and the entertainment sector. It's going to take time, and we are working on it step-by-step.”
Maher points to people living in remote and rural areas, who don't have easy access to clinics. People will be able to save money on public transport and cut kilometres from their travel by discovering clinics that are closer to home, he notes.
Building the database
Vodacom gathered the information using mapping and geocoding technology. Geocoding is the process of finding geographic co-ordinates that can be mapped out and entered into a geographic information system such as The Grid.
HIV-911 is funded by the United States Agency for International Development/President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief through the Foundation for Professional Development.
The HIV-911 information is available in the Grid's latest application release to coincide with this year's World Aids Day. To access the Grid, SMS 'GRID' to 33313 (50c/SMS) or visit http://onthegrid.mobi/.
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