End Point at Google for Kenya
By Will Plaut
November 2, 2018
Last month End Point had the great pleasure of exhibiting a Liquid Galaxy in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi at the first Google for Kenya event.
Kenya is home to the first Google office in Africa (opened 11 years ago) and Google is planning on growing its involvement in the country. The event was part of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative, and centered around some big announcements for Kenya. Google announced major financial commitments to a broad range of goals aimed at spurring innovation and they also announced the release of Street View for Kenya!
In July we did a similar Next Billion Users Google event in Lagos, Nigeria. The Nigerian event was open to the public and had around 7,000 guests so it was a nice change of pace to have only a couple hundred guests at the Google for Kenya event.
The Liquid Galaxy was center stage and guests took turns finding Street Views of their houses/apartments and then looking through the spectacular Street View scenes from across the country. The Street View of the Tusks of Mombasa seemed to put a smile on everyone’s face. My personal favorite was a panosphere taken from a drone of the great wildebeest migration in Maasai Mara.
Guests asked questions about what Street View actually gets used for and it made me think about how ubiquitous it has become in the United States. Just last week I used Street View to verify an address and find parking near my voting location. These things sound small but are immensely valuable when you need them. I’m sure Kenyans will find all sorts of new ways to get value from this Google service.
We were thrilled to have the opportunity to share Liquid Galaxy, and support Google for Kenya in leveraging the platform to explore local regions and homes. Google had previously installed the Liquid Galaxy in five different continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia), and these two recent events are the first in which Google has used Liquid Galaxy in Africa.
The Liquid Galaxy is currently being used at the Google Kenya office, and Google plans on finding opportunities to use the system in other regions of Africa. We look forward to providing our 24/7 remote system support in the meantime, and also look forward to supporting Google in Africa during future events!
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