CHENNAI: Mobile maps and navigation applications are a boon for the fast-paced life we lead, but sadly our mobile internet is sometimes not just as fast; it’s especially frustrating when you’re already late for a meeting and the location simply won’t load on your phone or when the food-delivery is late because your address is hard to locate. In most cases, time is really a matter of life and death where easy location-finding is an absolute necessity.
This is why Pramod Rathi and his friends, working in the real estate sector, decided to conceive of an easy way to share addresses and locations without the hassle of communicating perplexing directions.
“Having already launched a mobile app for the real estate
sector, we faced location-related issues often. There were many difficulties in communicating with clients as a result. Sometimes we weren’t even able to recognise the site we visited earlier,” says Pramod Rathi, founder, NextEra Softech LLP.
Developing a universal product in India was a major challenge for the team. So they used the name, “LinCodes” (Location Index Number Codes), which is coincidentally very close to pincode. “We considered Lincodes as an extended and more advanced digital version of pincode (postal index number), which was based on any large geographical area of a city.”
India was overlaid with a grid of 10ftX10ft which divided the whole country into over 360 billion squares. Each grid was assigned a unique 12-digit number with adjoining squares having common 11 digits to make it simpler to identify. This number could be communicated easily and with more certainty than sharing long street addresses, landmarks, latitude & longitude or mobile short-links.
When the app is open, one can search for a particular location to get its Lincode, or enter the Lincode to find the location. One can also store frequently-used addresses. The app can be used offline and does not depend on GPS and latitude/longitude, thus making it accessible to anyone with unpredictable internet availability at any given point of time.
After five months of in-depth research, the product was finally launched this month. And so far, the response has been great. “People have started sharing their personal LinCodes for home or office with others. And many users are saving LinCodes for locations they visit frequently. It will take time to witness a major impact, but till now, by analysing backend data & reviews of users we must say that people are opening up to the idea,” explains Pramod.