July 2021

When you accurately map Roadshields and exit signs, you help Wazers receive correct and easy to follow driving instructions. With your constant support and feedback on this much awaited feature, the Waze Map is improving to give you the smoothest driving experience possible by adding Roadshields and exit signs as requested by you. It's now available in Android Beta and in the most recent release of iOS, and also available in production for WME. Thank you for an amazing turnout in the recent Roadshields Office Hours session in which we discussed it's evolution and current status. Watch the recording of the live stream here.

What's Up Next? Expect more shields and exits to be designed and added; support shields in the towards field and capability to add shields to alternate names.

We know you're proud to be an important part of the Waze community. So, in recognition of your contribution, we have created a series of new forum badges for you to use in your forum signature and local social avatars for you to showcase and display. We hope that the new avatars will give different community channels a unified look and also help align your page to the Waze brand. Currently available for 34 countries, these social avatars will be made available for more countries. Reach out to your Community Manager to request these for your country as well.

McLarenMCL35M has been super-passionate about maps ever since he became a Wazer. The community loves him and appreciates his contributions and dedication in helping new editors. McLarenMCL35M, now a Country Manager, is always willing to teach new editors tips and tricks and bring them up to pace to improve the map in India.

McLarenMCL35M, your community wants to give you a special shout-out! Wazers like you make Waze a truly community-driven app.

To especially encourage gender diversity, we hosted our first "Mujeres en el Mapa" (Women in the Map) webinar in Spanish for our women editors with our star editor KellyUIO from Ecuador. "Bravo!" to all the 20 women editors who joined us live from Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil for this amazing session. We invite our budding Waze women editors to join us in our Discord Channel to help grow our community.

We also hosted another Masterclass session in English with Ianinessex from the UK. We know it's not easy to teach in a real environment but Ian - you were amazing. Thanks to everyone who joined us from the USA, Germany, Malaysia, Colombia and Singapore. If you want to edit like a pro, then look no further than our Masterclasses as we roll out more in the future. Keep an eye out for upcoming events through the Meetups Site.

Waze users in Kyiv now no longer have to stress about where to park. Thanks to the Ukrainian community and our Waze For Cities Program partner "Kyiv Digital", Wazers can easily find the most convenient parking lots and pay through the Kyiv Digital app right away. The community mentored our partners on how to map the parking lots using local mapping guidelines to help digitize 924 parking lots in Kyiv and place them on the Waze map. Kudos to our Ukrainian community for making this happen.

What's up next? Plans to integrate parking cost notifications and the number of possible spaces.