CityMapper
Azmat Yusuf
When I first got to London, I was trying to take buses around the city but I just couldn’t figure out the system. At the same time, I wanted to start a tech company, but I wasn’t sure what it would be. Ultimately solving my personal problem of getting around the city became the starting point for Citymapper.
I grew up in Pakistan and the Middle East and went to university the United States. In America, I was on a restrictive work visa so I couldn’t really start my own company. And after 9/11, it was difficult as a Pakistani person to travel and get visas. At the time, the UK had a points-based system, and it gave me the freedom to come here and be an entrepreneur.
The tech scene was not as big as it is now when I came here 12 years ago. Silicon Valley was everything. I knew I had to find something that played to the advantages of London. One is that London is a big city, and that public transport is essential here. In the US, except for New York, everyone is really car centric. And Transport for London had really pioneered open data. So there was an opportunity to do something interesting.
The hardest part of being a newcomer is that you don’t have a network and you spend a lot more time figuring out how things operate. But I’m proud that despite not being from here, I’ve built something that millions of people in this city use and love and has become part of their daily lives.
Image: Wired/Creative Commons
