Ivory Coast has adopted a revolutionary new system postal addresses that contain just three words. It means that the first time ever, everyone the country will be able to receive mail to their house or office. until now, people had to rely post office boxes. There were only 150,000 these nationwide and people had to rent them, which meant poorer people found it difficult to receive mail. The head Ivory Coast's post office told the BBC: "We have 150,000 PO boxes a population of nearly 24 million. That means a postal address is a luxury Ivory Coast. We have to make postal access available to everyone." He said the three-word addresses would move Ivory Coast the digital age.
The Ivory Coast's new postal system is based the what3words.com geo-mapping system. Its software has divided the world a grid 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares, each assigned a unique 3-word address. The software uses latitude and longitude coordinates to precisely pinpoint a location a global address network. The 22 numbers from these coordinates are converted three easy to remember words that replace house numbers, street and city names and zip codes. A what3words.com spokesperson said: "Poor addressing might seem no more than annoying some countries, but the world, it hampers the growth and development nations, ultimately costing lives.
