Microsoft MVP, Daisuke Yamazaki specializes in Bing Maps and evangelizes mapping inside and outside of the classroom. As Associate Professor teaching web technologies at Digital Hollywood Graduate School, Yamazaki has built a website for students that publicly offers anyone the resources and tools to easily get started with Bing Maps – BingMaps Go!
Digital Hollywood University is a private university in Tokyo, Japan with a focus on digital communications and degree programs in Anime, CG, Film, Web, Graphic Design and IT Programming. Yamazaki teaches in the web program and, as author of several books, he is known for popularizing Bing and several other web technologies. His latest book entitled, Bing Maps API Nyumon (available in Japanese only), the companion book to Bing Maps GO!, further underscores his deep knowledge of mapping.
When asked “Why Bing Maps?”, Yamazaki’s answer is forthright, “Bing Maps is excellent in terms of cost, mapping accuracy and ease of development.” What more can be said?
Below is a Q&A with Yamazaki about maps, BingMaps Go! and being an MVP:
Why are you passionate about maps?
I am an engineer and I teach programming engineering as an associate professor at a university. In recent years, the number of applications using maps and location information has increased, and I believe that knowledge of maps APIs are essential in programming classes. Therefore, in my class, which uses programming, I always take classes that use Bing Maps APIs. Maps are one important solution that you need to build research and practical applications.
Why did you decide to become a Microsoft MVP specializing in Bing Maps?
I use the Bing Maps API at work, and it's very simple and versatile. With a little bit of code I was able to operate and display the map. In business applications, location and maps are used in many situations. For Bing Maps in Japan, there is still not enough recognition by developers. I wanted to be an MVP, and I wanted to be able to spread the usefulness of Bing Maps APIs to developers all over the world with Bing Maps output.
What are you using Bing Maps for Enterprise for?
The newly released BingMaps Go! website will be an implementation support web service for web designers and programmers to introduce them to Bing Maps at an early stage. Currently, we are preparing basic and simple templates, which make Bing Maps easy to use for beginners.
We will add additional templates as needed from now on. Engineers around the world will be able to use the map API immediately.
Why did you choose Bing Maps for Enterprise in your solution?
With Bing Maps we offer APIs, such as route search and traffic at the top level compared to other companies. Also, the APIs are designed to be easy to use by developers, such as pushpin and infobox, and have low learning costs.
In university and graduate studies, it is easy to get started with Bing Maps as a place where you can learn, even if you do not have a credit card. Then the familiar Bing Maps API can continue to be a part of a company's development.
What benefits are you and your students seeing?
People across society are now studying programming. Especially in JavaScript classes, we learn the process from the basics to building small applications.
We are also doing classes using the map API at G's ACADEMY, entrepreneurial development and programming school. In the map API class, it is important to show a certain number of samples because students cannot imagine what a maps API can do, they have to see it.
BingMaps GO! can also display basic samples of the map API and allow users to edit and execute JavaScript. I can imagine the application while checking its behavior on the browser. Samples are chosen by selecting frequently-used functions so that students can study easily. Therefore, I think that it is a brief and good site to know the basic behavior of Bing Maps API.
What are your goals as a Microsoft MVP?
I hope that the Bing Maps GO! service that I made and my students will grow and help solve as many of the challenges in the world as they can.
For more information about BingMaps GO, go to https://mapapi.org/. For more about the Bing Maps for Enterprise solutions, go to https://www.microsoft.com/maps.