A dream has become a reality for a Windsor-based company which now has customers for its online mapping technology across the globe.

Scribble Maps was launched 11 years ago after co-founder and chief executive officer Jonathan Wagner had a dream about trying to draw and doodle on maps created by another technology giant.

“Once Jonathan realized he couldn’t do it, we decided to get to work and change it,” said Carolina Wagner, the company’s director of customer education.

Wagner enlisted the help of Dan Plarina, a partner in the company, and suddenly businesses, governments, individuals and school children across the world had access to new mapping technology which allows them to create their own maps for fun, business and education.

“Growth has been remarkably fast in recent years and we now have a user base exceeding 200,000 in virtually every industry and organization from the White House to the Toronto Transit Commission,” said Carolina.

The White House in the past enlisted the help of Scribble Maps to plan a route for a Martin Luther King march while the TTC used it to simplify its transit routes across the Greater Toronto Area.

A major appeal of Scribble Maps’ technology is its user-friendly applications which allow school children to create their own maps without the exercise resulting in frustration.

“Elementary school students are using our application to chart routes in history and geography classes,” said Carolina. “Outside of school, some children are using it to maximize their time and candy collection on Halloween by using co-ordinates based on the houses that handed out the best candy last year.”

The maps are also used by tour companies to plan routes, humanitarian agencies in Yemen to help plan aid delivery, by police forces in Africa who use it to chart crime statistics by neighborhood to help direct resources in a more efficient manner and by sales companies who wish to optimize their routes to save time and money.

Scribble Maps offers a free version and also a pro version which requires payment to access all the applications and available technology.

Carolina said the company is now concentrating more of its efforts on signing up new pro version customers and that the company’s growth possibilities are endless.

“In effect, we are just getting started,” said Carolina.

According to Carolina, users are able to add custom images/overlays on their maps, place text and markers, draw shapes as well as use distance and area calculators, create map images and send copies to friends.

New targets for the company’s sales initiatives are cell phone and utility companies seeking to map their customer locations more effectively and autonomous and automate diving companies.

The company recently released new updates including new UI, travel polygon, buffer analysis and progressive erasing and polygon merging.

For most of the past five years, the Wagners worked remotely while travelling around the world viewing as many of the Seven Wonders of the World as possible. It also gave them ideas about future customers and applications while they worked to solidify their existing customer base.

“We worked during the week and went sightseeing on weekends,” said Carolina.

“We’d still be out there if it wasn’t for the coronavirus,” she added. “We came back to Windsor in early March and have been working from home ever since.”

With up to 10 employees at any given time and headquarters in Windsor, it’s a true local success story with the future still to be charted.

For more information, visit scribblemaps.com