Problem: Without an address, it’s nearly impossible to receive reliable services (paychecks, letters, voting ballots, etc.). Moreover, whole segments of customers globally are cut out from online and delivery marketplaces because they don’t have an address.
Solution: A business whose whole goal is to document everyone in the world’s address. The business would create a database about where people live and where they can receive services, letters, etc. Today’s idea was heavily inspired by Deirdre Mask in her book “The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power” and in her Financial Times article from yesterday, “Where the streets have no names: Why Addresses matter.” Below is an excerpt of the piece:
Addresses don’t simply document where you live; they are crucial badges of identity. Without an address, you can’t get a bank account or receive deliveries, and in some places you will struggle to vote. Giving people street addresses is, experts have argued, one of the most cost-effective ways to help pull people out of poverty. Addresses also reveal insights into how ideas about race, class, identity and power have shifted across the centuries.
This business would help to push the old innovation of addresses to the next level, while also helping to create a more equitable society. In partnership with the United Nations’ Universal Postal Network, the business would create a way to use longitude and latitude to document where people all 7 billion people call home. Eventually, the business would have a robust database that could be used to create a “digital twin” of where people live and who lives there.
If we ever want to get to a place where cars, drones, robots, and more can automatically provide services within our home, then we must find a way to provide addresses in a more digital-friendly way (beyond just street addresses). Since longitude and latitude is unique at every point in the world, this system would be a reliable one for distinct identification.
Monetization: Selling access and/or use of such a database to corporations or access to an API for delivery companies that want to transition the world to automation.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)