The idea of photographing every detail of the Earth’s surface and putting those images online didn’t occur to anyone until Vanderbilt graduate Chikai Ohazama and his team came up with the idea in 2005.
We call it Google Earth.
Everyday Internet users, CNN and other news stations use Google Earth, and in many classes here at Vanderbilt, such as Geology 101: Dynamic Earth, the program is used to show examples of different landforms and areas of the Earth.
“I’m very impressed by the fact that in Australia, scientists used the software to find rare coral reefs, and in Africa an area was discovered that man had never explored before and many new species were found there,” Ohazama (Class of ’94) said. “On the Google Earth blog, there are currently five ‘heroes’ of Google Earth, highlighting organizations that take the software and use it to change the world.”
One of these is Save the Elephants. By using Google Earth to track elephants in Mali, its founder, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, is able to rescue elephants from poachers and help the animals suffering from climate change and drought.
When Ohazama was a freshman at Vanderbilt, he believed he would become a professor and would one day teach and research at a university. However, when he graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering, he chose a career that involved computers rather than grading papers.
This change in plans was due to opportunities and the people he met, including Professor Robert Galloway, while at Vanderbilt.
“I worked with him one-on-one on his research, and I participated in a summer research program my senior year,” Ohazama said. “That is where my passion for making the impossible was born.”
While at Vanderbilt, he was able to work with computers, not just with computer science- and technology-related projects. According to Ohazama, one of his favorite things about Vanderbilt was the fact that its computer programs were not purely science-and-technology based.
“I had the opportunity to do more arts-related research, too,” he said.
This prepared Ohazama, after completing graduate school at Duke, to begin working for Silicon Graphics, the company that created the graphics for “Jurassic Park.” At Silicon Graphics, Ohazama began to have an idea for the program that would turn into Google Earth.
“I used high-end satellite imagery, and that was when I began to think about taking the high-end imagery and making it available so that anyone could have access to the incredible technology that was being created,” Ohazama said.
He co-founded Keyhole Inc., a spin-off of Silicon Graphics, and after Google acquired Keyhole in 2004, Ohazama became the director of project management, generating revenue for Google Maps and Google Earth. He also manages the extensive imagery database.
Google Earth takes aerial photographs and satellite images from commercial providers, government satellites and internationals sources and compiles them into one database.
The pictures on the program are updated once every 18 months, depending on the location in the world. According to Ohazama, his favorite aspect of Google Earth is the variety of activities it is used for.
“People around the world use Google Earth for simple things such as locating one’s house to such complex things as using the product for relief efforts during Hurricane Katrina,” he said.
The Google Earth project has only just begun. Every year more applications are added, enabling millions around the world to choose seeing the “Street View” of an area, and having the opportunity to see the weather, traffic and places of interest.
One can also choose to see an area as it was thousands of years ago, be it at the time of the Ancient Romans or the time of the dinosaurs.
