Wayfinding, indoor navigation solution for visually impaired

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to provide the Office of Information and Communication Technology (OICT) with information from the market to identify potential vendors that have the capability to implement the goal of improving accessibility, particularly for persons with disabilities as well as to know its implementation and maintenance budgetary cost with the aim of launching a formal solicitation in the near future. The service provider shall facilitate the navigation of buildings on the UNHQ campus for staff and visitors, and provide the individual with relevant information related to their route by implementing a ready-to-use beaconless indoor navigation solution with enough positional accuracy and voice turn-by-turn navigation guidance for the visually impaired. The solution should provide enough positional accuracy for indoor navigation by the visually impaired and should require no additional hardware or infrastucture (i.e., beacons) except the associated required application servers and the client devices. SCOPE: The way-finding system shall be able to accurately locate a person by locating her/his mobile phone and provide non-visual guidance to a set of possible destinations including nearest bathroom (if the bathrooms are separated by gender it shall navigate to the bathroom of the user’s choice), and to a specific conference room or other specific location. The system shall also be able to help a person navigate a preset path such as a path of a tour of the GA building that visitors take and should provide location-based information appropriate to the person’s location, such as a pre-recorded audio describing an exhibit. SUBMISSION: Please also note that this request does not constitute a solicitation. The Procurement Division reserves the right to change or cancel this request at any time. It should be noted that by submitting a reply to this RFI does not automatically guarantee or obligate the UN to invite any particular company to participate in the subsequent bidding process. Only those prospective companies that are deemed qualified by UN upon completion of an objective evaluation of their submission to the RFI will be invited to participate in any subsequent tender exercise. Kindly email your duly completed RFI form to elizabeth.levy@un.org. Relevant entities responding to this Request for Information should: a) Provide documentation at a high level that details the solution design and how it operates b) Provide the latest indoor positional accuracy test results for the solution - when, where, and details c) Provide a list of reference sites - location and use-case(s) d) Provide details on the licensing model, implementation and annual maintenance cost of the solution e) Confirm that no additional hardware, i.e. beacons, are required to implement the solution f) Provide company profile and list of relevant services and features for the solution