Go to Google Maps and take a look at a township in South Africa, a slum in India or a favela in Brazil. The website will show you a few roads, surrounded by plenty of blank space. Now switch to satellite view, and you'll discover teeming cityscapes, bustling with life in unmapped houses and businesses, along hundreds of uncharted streets. Or check out Nairobi, Kenya, where you will see many roads, but the streets have no names.

Over 75% of the world’s countries suffer from inconsistent, complicated or no addressing systems. In total the UN estimates that 4 billion people live without an address. Let's be clear: an address is not a "nice-to-have". Without it, you will struggle to get a passport, stake a property claim, become an active consumer, take out a low-interest credit, or run a business.

In his book The Mystery of Capital, the Peruvian development economist Hernando de Soto put it this way: "Without an address, you live outside the law." You might as well not exist.

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