Tawanda Kanhema (born ) is a Zimbabwean photographer and product manager. He helped map 500 miles of Zimbabwe for Google Street View as a volunteer.

Early life and education

Tawanda Kanhema is from the city of

Salisbury, Zimbabwe Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

. He studied documentary film-making and journalism at University of California, Berkeley.

Career

As of 2019, Kanhema was a product manager in Silicon Valley. In 2009, he noticed that Zimbabwe was not represented on Google Street View. He subsequently volunteered to carry the Street View gear across of Zimbabwe so that it would be more complete and representative. He captured images in Zimbabwe via helicopter, speedboat, bicycling, car, and hiking. Ultimately, about of his travels across the country were uploaded to the Street View platform. Kanhema acted as a volunteer for Google for this project, spending US$5,000 of his own money to travel and take the pictures for Street View. In March 2019, he was paid by the Mushkegowuk Council of northern Ontario to document the ice roads connecting their villages for Street View. Kanhema views his efforts as part of a wider effort to make Zimbabwe more attractive and accessible to tourists, and to improve geospatial data availability and quality in the region.

Personal life

In 2009, Kanhema moved from Zimbabwe to the US. He lived in Berkeley, California as of 2019.

External links

TED Speaker Biography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanhema, Tawanda 1980s births People from Harare University of California, Berkeley alumni Zimbabwean emigrants to the United States Living people