what3words: Now Everyone Can Say, “I.Am.Here”

Growing up on a farm, I didn’t have an address, just rural-route and post-office-box numbers. Our gravel roads weren’t named either, so to tell someone how to find us, we’d have to talk about driving a certain number of miles north, south, east, or west, crossing a bridge, or turning at a red barn.

Oh, how things have changed. Not only do my family members who live in the country now have house numbers and road names, we’ve also got that GPS thing. But there are still plenty of places in the world like the wild, wild midwest of my youth—places without registered addresses.

Take, for instance, Mongolia, a country more than twice the size of Texas, where many of its 3 million people live as nomads. What’s a post office to do? Well Mongol Post, the country’s postal service, recently turned to what3words for help. The London-based what3words has divided the globe into a grid of 57 trillion 3-meter by 3-meter squares, each with a unique 3-word label. So instead of needing a street address or directions or an unwieldy and hard-to-remember set of latitude/longitude coordinates, Mongol Post deliveries can go to places such as “cabdriver.salesclerk.scruff” or “graces.bigwig.pictures.”

According to what3words’ About page, 75% of the world’s population—4 billion people in 135 countries—don’t have adequate addressing systems. This causes difficulties not only in delivering mail but also in such things as reporting crimes, advertising a business, and delivering humanitarian aid.

what3words also solves problems in travel and tourism, and that holds true in even the most-developed countries. That’s because while a particular location may have a usable address, finding a place within that location can be difficult. For instance, you could use it to meet friends at a specific entrance at the airport. Or you could let someone know your place on a hiking trail. Or you could use it in a parking lot to find your car.

The system they developed by what3words currently has versions in 9 languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili, Russian, German, Turkish, and Swedish), and the organization guarantees that the word combinations pinned to a particular location will never change.

Oh, and there’s another use for what3words that I haven’t heard anyone else mention: naming your garage band. Sure you can use the Band Name Maker, but how much cooler would it be to use three random words that correspond with the garage where your band was born?