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Mapxus is glad to announce our strategic partnership with Hong Kong Blind Union (HKBU), which is the first self-help group organised and managed by people with visual impairment. HKBU and Mapxus strive to work towards valuable smart city ideas and aim to promote the spirit of self-help and mutual-help for visually-impaired people.
Innovative technologies are constantly improving our lives and helping the visually-impaired overcome the difficulty of orienting their actions caused by visual impairment. HKBU and Mapxus have developed an indoor positioning and navigation mobile application named “Smart City Walk” which is funded by The Charities Trust of The Hong Kong Jockey Club, target to facilitate smart mobility for the visually-impaired people, wheelchair users and elderly, even it is applicable to the general public.
Mapxus is the sole technical provider in Smart City Walk. It is the first large-scale city based with providing the barrier free indoor navigation solution in the world. Up to now, this project has already activated 150+ landmark building digital maps and positioning in Hong Kong. This project has also awarded the Smart Mobility Grand Award and Smart Tourism Gold Award at the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2020.
Smart City Walk project offers functions including but not limited to:
- Interactive indoor map display
- E-tactile Map
- Universal design
- Smart POI search
- Support the indoor and outdoor navigation
- Display the current location
- Auto-floor detection
- Voice navigation, supported by the native “VoiceOver” mobile function
- Locate nearby facilities and Point of Interest using the voice command
- Shortest Route & Barrier-free navigation
- Cross-building navigation
- Cross-floor navigation
- Real-time indoor positioning
- Visual assistance by the HKBU video call
- Venue Description
- Multi-language setting
- Support in both iOS and Android platforms
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“Smart City Walk” is not only encouraging more visually-impaired people to travel independently, but also helps other people in need to walk around without barriers. Apart from that, HKBU and Mapxus provide Digital Accessibility Consultation Service and Barrier-Free Facilities Consultation Service to benefit users. It would be great if more different venue owners would take the initiative to participate in this project and work together to make Hong Kong a barrier-free smart city.