Food aggregator Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal on May 8 announced what he described as India’s first crowd-supported weather infrastructure, which would provide real-time temperature, rain and other such updates.
Weatherunion.com, a proprietary network of over 650 on-ground weather stations, would be the largest private infrastructure of its kind in the country, Goyal said. It is present across 45 large cities and would soon be expanded.
“These weather stations, developed by Zomato, provide localised, real-time information on key weather parameters such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, rainfall etc.” he said in a post on the X platform.
The platform would be free to access. “We are now opening up free access to this (through an API) to all institutions and companies in the country. Wait. What? Free? Really? Yes, we believe that this data is too valuable to keep to ourselves or to monetise; therefore, as a Zomato Giveback, we are opening up access to this data to everyone for public good.”
The real-time weather data can be used by companies and institutions to boost productivity and the economy, Goyal said.
Zomato developed the infrastructure to have access to accurate and real-time weather data to make correct business decisions. The platform was made in collaboration with CAS- IIT Delhi and Zomato expects to see more partnerships.
Goyal, an IIT-Delhi alumnus, also said volunteers could provide space on their premises to install weather stations.
“Also, a lot of Zomato employees have hosted weather stations at their homes. As we look forward to further expanding this infrastructure, we welcome volunteers who want to provide us space on their premises to install these weather stations and contribute to nation building,” the Zomato CEO said.
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