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Story highlights
Many sprawling Indian cities have problems defining exact locations
Zippr is offering a solution for businesses in need of a specific address
The app generates a unique code, which will enable the postal service to find users
Most Indian cities are busy with cluttered streets, winding and hidden alleyways – every postman’s nightmare. Informal structures stand side by side with formal ones making navigation challenging – even for locals – and these cities are only going to keep sprawling, fast. By some estimates, the country’s urban population alone will surpass 500-million by 2030: almost double the entire population of the US.
Zippr’s Aditya Vuchi hopes to fix the broken postal format in India’s exploding economy.
CNN: Why do you think India needs a service like Zippr?
Aditya Vuchi: Newer localities, newer cities are now coming up much faster than even the postal department is able to keep up with. As a result, large parts of India today don’t have structured addresses.
CNN: There are often no building numbers or street names. How will Zippr tackle this?
AV: It solves the problem of explaining your address in a complicated way. We have mobile applications – Android and IOS – as well as on the web, where you go on to the app. Point on your map where your home or office is, give all your address information one time including landmarks, and the system generates a Zippr code.
That short 8-character unique code can then be shared with others, taking users to an exact location on Google Maps with directions.
CNN: More than 80 per cent of India’s population still lives in an offline world of SMS messages and phone calls. How will Zippr reach these potential customers?
AV: Going forward, we’re going to enable finding out an address via SMS channels where you text a Zippr code to a number and get an automatic response back with the full address, as well as directions to get there.
CNN: How many people do you think the service has the scope to reach?
AV: The vision that we are chasing at Zippr is to impact a billion lives. We feel that we have a serious shot at making lives so much better in India.
