{"id":17634,"date":"2018-03-23T14:44:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T14:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=17634"},"modified":"2018-03-23T14:49:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T14:49:14","slug":"putting-ghana-on-the-map-subah-ceo-on-project-being-undertaken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2018\/03\/23\/putting-ghana-on-the-map-subah-ceo-on-project-being-undertaken\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Ghana on the map: Subah CEO on project being undertaken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Like many African countries, Ghana has grown rapidly in recent years, with new buildings almost appearing overnight. Birendra Sasmal, CEO of Subah, explains how technology has been used to carry out the largest mass household data collection and building mapping exercise in African history.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Understanding and documenting the new world is a huge challenge for all types of organisations in Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>The Government needs to provide municipal services, including roads, schools and medical facilities and wants to apply property taxes to maximise its revenues.<\/p>\n<p>After a comprehensive consultation with the Government and other key stakeholders in Ghana, Subah Geospatial \u2013 part of the Subah Group \u2013 was set up in 2014 with the specific goal of identifying and recording all the streets, buildings, businesses and people in urban Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found that we should have an innovative solution in which we can address each house in Ghana so that we can give better services to people and the Government and communities can benefit from it,\u201d said Sasmal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are constantly looking for new ways to help solve real problems found in Africa. This project is a massive undertaking involving the development of new platforms and a huge time commitment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, even before completion, the data is being used to improve the working and personal lives of Ghana\u2019s citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The mapping and household data gathering exercise \u2013 which is set to be completed by June \u2013 will include all the metropolitan and municipal areas in Ghana, which make up about 62% of the built-up land mass.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-17638 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Accra_Ghana-1000-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"526\" height=\"394\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Accra_Ghana-1000-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Accra_Ghana-1000-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/03\/Accra_Ghana-1000.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 526px) 100vw, 526px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The features being recorded are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Building and property shells<\/li>\n<li>Street centrelines<\/li>\n<li>Key landmarks and point of interests<\/li>\n<li>Cartographic features traditionally included in maps such as rivers, wetlands, political boundaries and county limit<\/li>\n<li>Household information<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The process<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The information gathered from the three-year project will be vital in meeting the challenge of rapidly shifting demographics by bringing special intelligent information to the decision tables of the Ghanaian Government.<\/p>\n<p>Key to the success of the project is the AdventGIS, an advanced enterprise GIS Solution developed by Subah and its partners. AdventGIS is a powerful map-based mobile work management system that enables field teams to capture and update information.\u00a0 It is a single digital repository for millions of pieces of information about Ghana and its inhabitants.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to an extremely robust Search and Query function, users can enter the name and location of any street and get ground-level and satellite views of the site &#8211; as well as data about the buildings, businesses and people who live in the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdventGIS was the first of its kind in Africa \u2013 none of the Western African countries have this kind of solution,\u201d explained Subah.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis system can be integrated into any kind of government, whether it\u2019s security or finance. So, Government can know how many houses there are in each municipality or district, who is staying there and whether they have their taxes. It is easy data for them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd if people subscribe to us, they can easily navigate and get other information, like roads. There are eight to 10 kinds of benefits from this type of application and anybody can use it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, satellite maps and images taken by drones and on-the-ground handheld cameras are used to identify features which are recorded by a 50-strong team in a custom-built state-of-the-art mapping centre.<\/p>\n<p>Around 2,000 people are employed knocking on doors to collect household data. They use tablets with power banks and a customised app to enter information into a central database.<\/p>\n<p>This data is then uploaded at the end of each day and validated by more than 80 call centre personnel who call telephone numbers to double-check the accuracy of the data.<\/p>\n<p>Crucially, for the many streets with no name and buildings with no number the integrated address management software generates names and assigns addresses \u2013 thus ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Results<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was clear at the outset that this would be a lengthy and labour-intensive exercise with huge ROI potential \u2013 both economically and socially.<\/p>\n<p>Two years into the project, more than 1,067,000 buildings have been documented and data on 1,097,000 households collected.<\/p>\n<p>The data collected is already being used in several important ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Private refuse collection companies &#8211; who are paid direct by customers &#8211; are now using the mapping system to identify and serve new people<\/li>\n<li>The Land Valuation Board, is currently using the database to ensure that the appropriate property taxes are applied \u2013 and collected<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cFor every stage, we got experts from other countries, like the USA, India, Germany and France who came and audited it and it is compliant to UK standard,\u201d said Sasmal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Land Valuation Board has demanded to know how much taxation each property needs to pay, so by utilising these systems, they are able to identify each house and what type of taxation they have. This is important for a developing country because they need revenue being generated and it is also good for the general public.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want to apply for a banking loan or a passport, your address cannot be identified. But because of our system, security, financial and intelligence entities can utilise this platform, so for a security point of view, it is very good.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur systems have also mapped all power distribution lines, so we can tell if there any issues because power distribution companies may not have the data.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>A blueprint for Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is the first large-scale private sector initiative in Africa \u2013 and possibly the world \u2013 to map the buildings, streets and population of an entire country. Ghana has created a blueprint that fellow nations both inside and outside of Africa can now follow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur solution is very light and can work with any kind of systems used by the Government,\u201d said Sasmal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s giving solutions to local issues and is a local African product. Ghana can do what many other Western African countries can do. Africa is a continent where technology is making the leap from one stage to another and being a local Ghanaian company, we can identify issues and make technology more innovative to the continent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur company\u2019s vision is to give something back to society by giving innovative solutions, so their livelihoods can be better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many African countries, Ghana has grown rapidly in recent years, with new buildings almost appearing overnight. Birendra Sasmal, CEO of Subah, explains how technology has been used to carry out the largest mass household data collection and building mapping exercise in African history. Understanding and documenting the new world is a huge challenge for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":17635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,843,328,481,399,19,54,183,269],"tags":[4813,4811,708,4812],"class_list":["post-17634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-editors-choice","category-features","category-government","category-more-news","category-regional-news","category-research","category-software","category-trade-logistics","tag-adventgis","tag-birendra-sasmal","tag-ghana","tag-subah"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17634"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17639,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17634\/revisions\/17639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}