Mapcode Foundation Information

A mapcode is a code consisting of two groups of letters and digits, separated by a dot. It represents a location on the surface of the Earth. The mapcode system is a free, brand-less, international standard for representing any location anywhere. It is a short, easy to recognize and remember “code”, between 4 and 7 characters long. Accurate enough for public, every-day use, mapcodes are supported in over 60m car navigation devices world-wide. Soon after the GPS satellite signals were opened up for civilian use, Pieter Geelen and Harold Goddijn, the founders of TomTom, developed Mapcodes. Mapcodes greatly benefit a large spectrum of the world’s population, particularly those of developing countries so a rapid worldwide adoption is desired. Therefore, mapcodes have been donated to the public domain as a free, open source and unbranded opportunity for anyone, anywhere. To manage this; the Mapcode Foundation was established in the Netherlands in 2013 as an independent, non-profit organization. Its purpose is to foster mapcodes as a standard of public location encoding, and to provide, support, distribute and stimulate the use of mapcodes, free of charge, as widely as possible. The board of directors includes: - Kewal Shienmar – Managing Director (business development and GIS specialist) - Pieter Geelen - Director (co-inventor of mapcodes and co-founder of TomTom) - Hugo van der Linde - Director (CEO at AND Automotive Navigation Data). - Sean Fernback, President of HERE Maps). www.mapcode.com