Visitors of the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, in Central Romania, will be able to find their way around the museum complex easier using their smartphones.

The museum has been included in the European project i-locate, which aims to simplify the life of users by helping them navigate inside buildings using their smartphone, to reach their place of destination, providing further information on the location, reads a statement of the museum.

The i-locate system also allows tracking objects and portable equipment in indoor spaces in order to improve their management and maintenance. I-locate is the acronym for indoor/outdoor location and asset management through open geo data.

The project has an implementation period of three years, starting January 1, 2014, and the costs amount to EUR 4.7 million. A total of EUR 2.36 million represents EU contribution.

The project consortium gathers 24 partners including technical developers, final users and technical partners providing support to final users. More about the i-locate project here. Two other locations in Romania are part of the pilot for this project, the Alba Iulia Emergency Hospital, and the municipality of Brasov, in Central Romania - all the other pilot sites, here.

The Brukenthal National Museum was erected in the late 18th century in Sibiu, and housed in the palace of Samuel von Brukenthal, the Habsburg governor of Transylvania and who established its first collections around 1790. The collections were officially opened to the public in 1817, making it the oldest institution of its kind in Romania.

The Brukenthal is a complex of six museums, located in different locations around the city, and hosting different cultural programs.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com