Former Dubai resident launches site to solve region’s addressing issues

Addy.co is the brainchild of Khalid Naim, who grew up in Dubai and came up with the idea for the website as a solution to the emirate's address problems.

DUBAI // An online system that aims to help Arab countries solve their addressing problems was launched last night.
Addy.co is the brainchild of Khaled Naim, the company's chief executive and a recent Stanford University graduate.
"I came up with the idea based on my experience living in Dubai, where much of the directions was still based on landmarks," said the Syrian, who was raised in London and Dubai.
The project has managed to collect US$300,000 from a number of places, including the Dorm Room Fund, a student-run venture capitalist firm that invests in student-run companies.
"Addy is an addressing system that we hope will build a new standard for the digital world," said Mr Naim, who has based the company in San Francisco.
"Addy is an easy way to communicate locations through a custom link that can be shared by SMS or email. All you have to do is sign up and start inputting your locations, giving each a personalised URL address."
Mr Naim said that Addy's purpose is different from that of Google Maps. "This system in not based on Google Maps, we built our own maps from scratch. It is very simple to use, even for people with little experience."
He added that he was aware of the new addressing system that Dubai Municipality is working on. "We hope that we can work with these projects and tap into any system out there. Addy focuses on global solutions and we are working on business integration, especially for the Mena region."
For now Addy.co is just online but the team has plans for an app. "We will start working on apps by the end of the year but we've not yet decided to go IOS or Android – for now we have to make sure the browser version is perfect," Mr Naim said.
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