Our journey toward the Autonomous World

And, at HERE, we believe the only way to make this work is for it to be an open world.

Until now, HERE has been known as a location data company. Maps are where we started over 30 years ago.  Now, we are further evolving and expanding into new and exciting areas.

In the last few years, we have quickly transitioned into a data company on the bleeding edge of technology. Today, what we are creating is even bigger: a full data ecosystem, with location intelligence at its heart.

Using that location intelligence, and indeed the full ecosystem of data is going to be about collaboration and partnerships. That thought, that simple connection is so important that it’s worth repeating: The future of the Autonomous World is going to be all about collaboration and partnerships.

That’s not only from the perspective of businesses, but it’s about how communities come together.  It’s about how developers access shared data to quickly create new services and applications. It’s about city infrastructures using data to intelligently accommodate the world’s growing population. A brighter future is only enabled when the data is used collaboratively.

That shared data comes from everywhere, and it’s vast. An overwhelming majority, 90%, of the world’s data has been produced and collected in the last two years. It comes from, and will continue to come from autonomous vehicles, mobile devices, websites, buildings, drones, and many other and new ‘things’  yet to be introduced to the market.

Our vision of the future is an Autonomous World where everyone has the ability to benefit from that data — and they’ll gain that benefit from the HERE Open Location Platform. It is an invaluable resource where communities gain information about the world, and contribute back into it. That’s the essential collaboration – because we believe that no single company will be able to do it alone.

How is this going to come together?

I want you to imagine a city. This city isn’t far away, it’s only 30 years or so down the road. In that city, everything is connected.

Fully autonomous cars are on the roadways. Those cars share a constant stream of data to the cloud, and to each other, reducing traffic incidents to near zero. They move efficiently, so pollution is massively reduced. Since AI now does all the driving, the interior of a vehicle has become an extension of our living and working space, giving commuters their personal time back.

In the air, drones provide delivery services. They also inspect buildings, survey crops, and create 3D maps of our skies to optimize flight patterns.

Automated fleets are the norm. Deliveries are planned using the traffic data shared by automobiles, so road blockages for double-parked delivery vehicles are a distant memory.

Each of these systems is powered by open data, and each shares data back into the system for others to leverage. Each one informs the other, making each service better and more intelligent.  That is the collaboration that the Open Location Platform enables.

I invite you to come out and join us at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. There, we will be sharing a deeper look into the Autonomous World, and several remarkable experiences that showcase the ways we will enable this exciting future vision.