NEWS

MazeMap teams up with Cisco to help College of Bergen students and staff find their way around.

Cisco and Norwegian company MazeMap have teamed up on indoor location development—like GPS for your car—for several customers. One of the customers is the College of Bergen. The college has just consolidated the distributed campus from five buildings down to two. The move required more efficient space utilization and more flexibility in scheduling. As a result, the college needed a navigation solution that helped students and staff find their classes and schedules. The wayfinding service required two elements: location and maps. Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences used the campus’ Cisco Wi-Fi network to determine the location of each mobile device, and MazeMap provided the maps.

Using digital flow plans of the college facilities, MazeMap created the maps and made sure all rooms and points of interest were searchable and available across all platforms, including iOS and Android. They also integrated with the university’s existing services, including the e-timetable system, to provide a richer information tool. When users click “Find my location,” they can see themselves as a blue dot moving along the shortest route to their destination. This feature factors in available elevators, stairs, and doorways and avoids no-entry areas.

By combining the expertise of Cisco and MazeMap, the College of Bergen helps students and staff make the most of their time on campus. Just two weeks after the launch, the service was used by 4,000 users—equivalent to 60 percent of all students and employees.

The company was started in July 2013 in Trondheim. Already the next year, revenues were close to four million NOK. The CEO is Thomas Jelle, who is a serial entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience from managing and commercializing research and development projects. He has founded or co-founded five ICT startups and holds an adjunct professor position at NTNU. There are 15 employees at MazeMap, and the largest shareholder is NTNU Technology Transfer AS.

MazeMap won the European Satellite Navigation Competition for Norway. Part of the prize was a four-week stay at the Nordic Innovation House in Silicon Valley, famed for their technology incubator program Teach INCubator (TINC) for startups with ambitions and potential for international growth. It is designed as on-the-job training, and the participant is able to test their products on potential customers, industry experts, and investors. As he received the prize, Thomas Jelle said that they already have American partners in Silicon Valley. The stay will make cooperation and investments in the U.S. easier.