Hiroshige Sugihara, President and CEO of GeoTechnologies, shares how the company's name change signals a new direction — that will benefit the entire planet.

Since 2017, HERE has been in partnership with Japanese car electronics brand IPC (or INCREMENT P CORPORATION), working together to provide truly global mapping and location navigation solutions for the autonomous world.

IPC is now changing its name to GeoTechnologies, signaling a fresh new era for the company.

“Geo" is the Latin for “earth", with the new name repositioning the brand as a corporation committed to providing solutions for the planet. Image credit: GeoTechnologies.

GeoTechnologies' mission is relayed in its new name — with the power of maps and navigation, the company can help people get from A to B, as well as try to solve some of today's biggest environmental issues.

Speaking to HERE360, Hiroshige Sugihara, President and CEO of GeoTechnologies, explains: “Technology aids customers making it quicker and easier to do things, but to make these big achievements happen it consumes vast amounts of power.

"In the era of global warming, the earth is facing a plethora of worrying environmental problems. Since the company was founded in 1994, we've accumulated huge data assets that we can now use to help solve some of these challenges."

Now, GeoTechnologies is looking at using the drones that compile its maps to work out where carbon is produced most intensely on the planet, so that these emissions can be targeted and reduced, as well as using its maps during natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes to come the aid of those who are trapped or in danger.

There are other ways that GeoTechnologies gives back to the environment, too — its maps are used in its navigation app TORIMA (Trip Mile), which has been downloaded 7.5 million times to date. The app gives you the option to donate money to help protect Japan's forests for every distance traveled or steps counted.

In the B2B side of the company, GeoTechnologies offers logistics business mapping solutions to help drivers transport goods as quickly and efficiently as possible. Japan, like many other nations in the world, faces a shortage of truck drivers to ship goods around the world, but Hiroshige tells HERE that in the future, GeoTechnologies, partnered with HERE, will use its technology to “modernize the entire system of logistics", giving it a complete “digital transformation" that will ease the supply chain.

GeoTechnologies' partnership with HERE gives the company bigger insights into the European and North American markets — and vice versa. Image credit: GeoTechnologies.

Founded in Japan, Hiroshige explains that GeoTechnologies is in a unique position in the location navigation technology market due to the complexities of Japanese maps and the way that street names work, which he says is “very complicated even for native Japanese people to understand — and even impossible for foreigners".

“HERE is the global standard for location data and we want to be part of that," Hiroshige says. “Sharing data is good for our business and for productivity."