FOSDEM 2025: Discovering indoor environments and positioning systems

Have you ever gotten lost in a building and wished they had some sort of navigation system or at least a floor plan? I have, unfortunately, and it was only later that I realised that not only they had a floor plan online - but they had a navigation app for that building. The reality is that a user who is not familiar with a building will not find such an app until it's too late. Indoor environments sometimes have public floorplans available via some service. Similarly, more and more indoor positioning systems are being deployed in buildings to provide navigation services or asset tracking. However, as a person visiting a building, you are often not aware that these services exist or where to find them. Even if some global registry exists to discover this data, it is often proprietary, discouraging developers from interfacing with such systems. I want to bring a shift into the landscape of indoor positioning systems and services and solve this! In this presentation, I will talk about discovering indoor environments and positioning systems through local and global discovery methods, linked data and personal data vaults. How nice would it be, that instead of downloading the FOSDEM app, you simply use Google Maps or any open-source navigation application to find the location of this talk?

Got lost in a building and wished for a navigation system? I have – and it was only later that I discovered one existed! The reality is, that indoor navigation tools often go unnoticed by visitors, even if they’re available.

I'll be speaking at FOSDEM (Geospatial Devroom - room AW1.120) on February 1st at 11:00 about how to make indoor positioning systems and environments more discoverable and accessible, using local/global discovery methods, linked data, and our SemBeacon specification. https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4526-discovering-indoor-environments-and-positioning-systems/

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