Facebook’s New Map of World Population Could Help Get Billions Online

by Tom Simonite, MIT Technology Review

Facebook keeps its map of the social connections of the 1.6 billion people who use the service each month to itself. But it is giving away for free new maps it is building that describe patterns of population density in the world’s poorest countries in unprecedented detail.

Facebook is building maps that describe patterns of population density in the world’s poorest countries in unprecedented detail. Facebook wants those maps to help it figure out how to deploy the solar-powered drones and ground-based infrastructure it says can help get Internet access to a sizeable chunk of the more than four billion people who are not online today. The company says 10 percent of the world’s population lives in places where connectivity is not available. It is working with Columbia University to release its new maps so that other companies and organizations can use them, too.

Facebook believes other companies and organizations could put the maps to good use, and recently released the new maps for free. “These higher-resolution data will be useful in optimizing the location of health and sanitation facilities, planning energy and transportation networks, improving resource management and access, and facilitating humanitarian assistance,” says Robert Chen, director of Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network.

The maps show population density on a grid with squares only 10 meters across. Facebook used image-recognition software trained to read satellite images for signs of human habitation and how dense it is. The company says it took billions of satellite images and thousands of computers working for weeks to create the maps.  Read the article