Ukrainian information technology companies and digital agencies have added several Kyiv districts to a rapidly growing digital map of the world.
Called On the Grid, this web map is a massive collaborative online project, in which hundreds of creative companies and designers from around the world place information on their cities’ sights, venues, and cafés in an online travel guide.
Launched in April 2015, the project is curated by designers from Brooklyn design agency Hyperakt, who “shared exceptional places in their neighborhood with the rest of the world.”
In Kyiv, MacPaw, a Mac applications developer, Ukrainian stock photo agency DepositPhotos, digital design agencies Zajno, Postmen, and Aimbulance and several activists took photographs to illustrate the sights in their own city districts, and wrote descriptions for digital map users.
MacPaw became the city’s digital ambassador, and was in charge of dividing responsibilities between the authors, and “packed the Kyiv page in the guide (with content),” PR-manager at MacPaw Julia Petryk told the Kyiv Post.
“The ambassador of the city coordinates the work on the project, and connects the founders (of On the Grid in New York) with local participants (in Kyiv),” Petryk said.
Currently five Kyiv districts, including Podil, Universitet, Olimpiyskiy, Stare Misto, and Lypky, are available on the online guide for tourists, along with thousands of other places in cities like New York, London, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Paris, Barcelona, Sofia, Stockholm and many others.
The company thought “it would be great to tell Kyiv guests and residents about the sites in our capital,” Petryk said. “Several months of preparation, shaping of the content and photographing, and voilà! Our beloved city has appeared on the (online) guide, and can attract tourists.”
This story first appeared in the Kyiv Post.
