Can AsaaseGPS Deliver The Digital Address System That Ghana Has Been Looking For?

A digital address system in Ghana is almost here.

In the coming weeks, the digital addressing system for Ghana will soon be unveiled and AsaaseGPS is the company behind this new system.

AsaaseGPS is a location-based system which provides the most effective means of addressing every location and place. AsaaseGPS’s system will divide Ghana into grids of 5m x 5m squares and assign each one a unique address, known as a digital address.

In the coming weeks, the digital address system will be formally unveiled by the Government of Ghana in fulfilment of one of their campaign promises. This system should allow citizens to find virtually any location in Ghana through the use of a computer or mobile device.

Currently, AsaaseGPS has a mobile app which users can try out and get a preview of what the system might look like (Google Play, iOS Store, Windows Phone).

AsaaseGPS is the flagship product of Vokacom Group, a company which is involved in other ventures such as Information Technology, Content Aggregation, Financial Advisory, Agribusiness and Real Estate in Africa.

But What About SnooCode….

It is interesting to note why a company like SnooCode was not given the job of digitizing addresses in Ghana. SnooCode does have more visibility and more recognition as a digital addressing platform especially given the fact that they have received awards and recognition from entities like British Council and Coca-Cola (Read: Conversations With Makers Of SnooCode).

AsaaseGPS appear to be newcomers on the block but have seemingly bested SnooCode for the job of digitizing addresses in Ghana.

As far as application, SnooCode’s address format uses 6 characters while AsaaseGPS uses 9 characters for implementation. Also, SnooCode works offline for users while AsaaseGPS as of this time does not.

Despite some of the advantages that SnooCode has over AsaaseGPS, their system was not selected to undertake the digital address system for Ghana. Perhaps there are factors that led to AsaaseGPS being chosen to lead this instead. It would be nice to have answers to why that was the case.

Will A Digital Address Work And Be Effective?

Ghanaians can be slow sometimes to embrace change when it comes to technology. There remains a lot of questions especially about the education of the system to the public and how it would fit in citizens’ day to day activities. Ghanaians are still not comfortable with the use of mapping applications like Google Maps so it should be interesting to see how they adapt to this new digital address system.

No word on if AsaaseGPS has provided training to state institutions on the use of their system and how it has been integrated for easy and everyday use.

Will Ghana Post use this system? What about third-party delivery companies? How will businesses integrate this? There’s still a lot that we don’t know but hopefully, our questions will be answered in the coming weeks when the system is rolled out.

We can only hope that this works and makes the addressing system in Ghana better for all of us.