The Union Cabinet has approved a proposal for signing of an agreement between the government of India and the United Nations on a ‘way finding application’ to be used in the Palais des Nations, United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG).

Palais des Nations

• The United Nations (UN) is an international organisation founded in 1945. It is currently made up of 193 Member States. India is a founding member of the United Nations.

• The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), housed at the historic Palais des Nations, is the second largest United Nations centre after the United Nations Headquarters in New York. 

• The facility is situated in the beautiful Ariana park in Geneva, Switzerland. 

• It consists of five buildings and 21 floors.  

• Palais des Nations serves as the representative office of the Secretary-General in Geneva.

• It is a focal point for multilateral diplomacy and services more than 10,000 meetings and conferences every year, making it one of the busiest conference centers in the world. 

Significance of the app

• Keeping in view the complexity of buildings and huge participation, there was a requirement of a navigational application which can help the visitors and other delegates in finding their way inside the premises while adhering to all security perspectives.

• While the Global Positioning System (GPS) based apps function in open space, a more precise in-building navigation app will assist the visitors in locating the room and offices.

• The project of development of ‘way finding application’ has been conceptualised as a donation from the government of India to the UN on the occasion of its 75th anniversary.

• The estimated financial implication for development deployment and maintenance of the app is $2 million.

• The project consists of development, deployment and maintenance of a software-based ‘way finding application’ to facilitate navigation in the Palais des Nations premises.

• The application will enable users to find their way from point to point within the 21 floors spread across five buildings of UNOG.

• The app will work on Android and iOS devices with an Internet connection.

• The development of the app has been entrusted to the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), an autonomous telecom R&D centre of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store