NPR

He's Trying To Fill In The Gaps On Google Street View — Starting With Zimbabwe

Not every corner of the world is yet on Google Street View. Tawanda Kanhema sees these gaps as a kind of digital divide, so he volunteers to photograph and upload some of the places left off the map.
Tawanda Kanhema in 2018 wearing Google Street View camera gear in Harare, Zimbabwe.

One of the first things people do when they use Google Street View is check out the place where they live.

So when Tawanda Kanhema moved to the United States in 2009, he looked up his hometown of Harare, Zimbabwe's capital city, on the map of panoramic images. A self-described tech enthusiast now some 10,000 miles away from home, he was eager to see a virtual tour of the city.

But there was nothing to see. Harare wasn't on Street View. The busy streets and shops, the schools he attended — none of it was there, and neither was the rest of Zimbabwe, a country in southern Africa with a population of more than 14 million. As Kanhema looked around more, many Western cities were on the platform, but only

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