Navigate is a company that is building an intelligent map that will offer everyone better data faster. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Navigate AI and Blockchain Specialist to learn more about the company.
Ali Husain’s Background
Husain spent the last decade working in the technology industry, specializing in AI, game design, Web3, and drone solutions. And Husain said:
“I began my career at Microsoft, where I drove the development of Dynamics AX mobile applications. Later, I moved to the industrial AI company SparkCognition, where I prototyped the first version of their Natural Language Processing platform as Director of Solutions. I was also a founding member and served as Chief Product Officer at SkyGrid, a joint venture between SparkCognition and The Boeing Company. There I led the company’s product strategies, developing AI and blockchain technology to address complex challenges in the urban aerial mobility market.”
Formation Of Navigate
How did the idea for the company come together? Husain shared:
“Navigate was founded based on our mission to provide people everywhere with a better understanding of our planet by empowering a global community of explorers to share their experiences as they navigate the world. Navigate Maps enables users to share their view of the world each time they drive their car, fly a drone, or ride a bike. Every time they leave the house, they are capturing incredibly useful data that can power so many new and useful applications. To that end, we created Navigate as a platform where data can be shared, users can be rewarded for their contributions, and new applications can be created.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Husain explained:
“Navigate is building an AI-powered platform where users earn rewards every time they contribute data to the platform. Users can submit imagery from dashcams, drones, and other sources where they are already generating data, which is automatically processed by AI to remove sensitive data and ensure high quality. Automating this process allows Navigate’s mapping application, Navigate Maps, to be updated frequently, providing an advantage over existing mapping solutions that can’t keep up with the pace of change in our environment. Navigate is designed to continuously update with fresh data, resulting in better applications for everyone.”
“The rewards users earn for their contributions allow them to redeem gift cards from the Navigate Marketplace, choosing from hundreds of global brands, such as Airbnb, EA, Under Armour, and UberEats. In this way, user benefits are two-fold: a robust AI platform that enables new applications and exciting rewards for being a part of it.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Husain faced in building the company? Husain acknowledged:
“Web3 is only in its beginning stages – we really are so early. And anytime you see growth at the kind of speed the worlds of Web3, blockchain, and AI have seen, for example, there will also be growing pains. Having worked in the AI and blockchain space for many years now, we see this as an exciting challenge to take on, as well as a great opportunity to continuously learn!”
Evolution Of Navigate’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Husain noted:
“Since launching, we’ve come a long way in bringing the Navigate vision to life. For example, we’ve opened the public alpha of Navigate Maps and accept both street-level and aerial imagery for the map. Following that, in June this year we launched the Navigate Marketplace, a first-of-its-kind digital storefront where platform contributors can redeem gift cards from global brands with the Navigate points they earn from their data contributions. But this is just the beginning. Navigate Maps is one of the many applications that the core Navigate AI platform can enable, and we look forward to exploring additional use cases throughout next year.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Husain cited:
“As I mentioned previously, an exciting milestone we recently launched is the Navigate Marketplace. This digital storefront is the crux of our reward mechanism. Each time a user contributes imagery to Navigate Maps, they are rewarded with points that can be used to redeem gift cards from all kinds of global brands!”
Funding
After asking Husain about the company’s funding information, he revealed:
“Navigate closed $7.625 million in 2022 from early backers of the project, including Distributed Global, Kraken Ventures, Alan Howard, Outlier Ventures, Jez Mohideen, and others.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Husain affirmed:
“One of Navigate’s main goals is to give users a say in how their data is collected and shared. Navigate users can choose to share their imagery with the platform and are rewarded with points for their contributions. When it comes to other mapping providers, oftentimes the success of those platforms is in large part due to the efforts of individuals who contribute data to them, but those people typically see little, if any, rewards in return. With Navigate, users not only have the choice to contribute to an application that they care about growing, but also know that they will be rewarded for helping improve it!”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Husain concluded:
“As I mentioned, we are really just at the beginning. One of the things that excites us about Navigate is the vast array of use cases it enables, and the team is looking forward to exploring new applications that Navigate’s AI platform will launch.”
