An interview with Tracks4Africa

Tracks4Africa (T4A) specialises in developing GPS maps of the African continent for GPS-enabled devices. These maps are sold through their website and customers can then upload them to a GPS device to be used when trekking through the vast African continent.

Although T4A is not the only company that offers GPS maps as a commercial product, they are unique in a specific way. Where other competing organisations rely on existing geographical maps and in- house data collection for building their maps, T4A does not undertake any data collection themselves. All the data used in creating their content-rich GPS maps are generated by their customer base, the T4A community. Community members upload the data (called breadcrumbs) from their GPS devices to the T4A website, from which T4A then develops their commercial products.

This is an overly simplified description of what the process, and the upkeep of the system, entails. In essence, this complementary collaborative environment only succeeds because of the mutual emotional attachment of all the parties involved in the cause.

The commercially available map products from T4A cover 23 African countries with 550 000 kilometres of fully developed GPS maps. These products are based on a collected 7,5 million kilometres of GPS data – all of which have been submitted by the T4A community.

Although it may seem that T4A is exploiting its users’ contributions for its own financial benefit, this is definitely not the case. This mutual agreement was part of T4A’s humble beginnings.

What started as a web-based community forum for off-road enthusiasts in 1998 has now turned into a profitable organisation. In the beginning, all community members were on the same governance level (level of authority), sharing any off-road African experiences (and GPS data) with their fellow community members (flat hierarchy, see Figure 35). It was not until a few years ago that T4A obtained the required software to merge and create “routable” routes from these data sets – only then did the hierarchical style change to a governed type of “Innovation Mall”.

The process from raw GPS “breadcrumb” data to a commercially feasible product entails an immense amount of work from the T4A staff. As one can assume, quality assurance needs to play an integral role when prosumer involvement is as closely integrated into the final product as is the case with T4A. This obligation to nurture quality data and perform quality data filtering is identified throughout the entire process.

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The process from prosumer contribution to final product works as follows (Groenewald, 2009):

1. Prosumer submits GPS data via e-mail

o The prosumer specifies his or her personal details, description of the data as well as the actual data.

o T4A spot-checks the data.

o The submission (including accompanying e-mail message) is stored in a secure electronic folder structure.

o To maintain the highest level of traceability, T4A records as much information as possible from each submission (prosumer details, which area of Africa it relates to and date of submission).

2. GPS data is added to the vault

o T4A imports the specific prosumer’s GPS data to the vault – adding another layer to the pre-existing set of GPS routes (data sets).

o Every imported data set has a relational attribute stipulating the prosumer’s details, as well as submission date details to improve traceability.

3. Digitisation of the singular route

o The composite of imported GPS data sets provides the kernel on which the final route will be drawn.

o Each section of route is drawn manually, based on the combined submissions from all relevant prosumer entries. (Various efforts to automate this process have failed, as the imported GPS data is never “clean” – it contains various maverick data points because of logging errors).

A lot of open community communication with community members takes place during this phase, e.g. regarding road conditions and road accessibility in certain areas. o This digitised singular route set is referred to as the “warehouse”.

4. Compilation process

o The warehouse data layer is used to compile the final GPS route package. This will include the actual route layer, as well as geographical (rivers, dams, etc.) and other points of interest (POIs).

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o A lot of effort is spent on finalising the route layer, assigning specific colours to specific route sections to indicate the various surfaces and the accessibility of the routes.

o The compiled routes are packaged into an executable format by T4A.

5. Beta testing and quality assurance

o The compiled GPS package is distributed freely to the core T4A community, for quality-testing purposes. These users are then urged to load the beta package onto their GPS devices and through basic usage identify any discrepancies or errors that will be reported back to T4A.

o In-house testing is also done to ensure a certain level of quality and conformance. o Any reported errors are then rectified by the T4A staff.

6. Packaging and distribution

o The tested beta version is made available as a full commercial product – it can be downloaded from the T4A website, or is available in CD format.

This process is depicted in Figure 41. The importance of the opposing roles played by the community and by T4A are also graphically depicted.

Figure 41 - T4A's product development process

This entire process repeats itself biannually, with commercial releases taking place every year during the months of May and November.

The importance of the iterative design process within each cycle is portrayed by the role the T4A community fulfils in the quality assurance phase. T4A does not have the needed resources available to do all quality assurance testing in-house. Therefore, by using their prosumer base and understanding the requirements of fostering an actively participating community, they can rely on their community to fulfil this important function.

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This closer inspection of the entire process reveals why accusations of exploitation against T4A are unfounded. “Crowdsourcing” is often criticised as being the exploitation of cheap labour (see discussion of spec work in section 4.4.2.3 (ii). Tracks4Africa does involve their community in their product development process, but this participation takes place by mutual agreement of all parties concerned and the community is well rewarded for their participation in the form of regularly updated GPS maps.

The immense amount of reworking and effort undertaken by T4A on the raw prosumer contributions show that there is merit in capitalising on crowdsourcing, provided a valid business model is already in place.