The federal agency and guardian of America’s overseas commemorative cemeteries and memorials teamed with an industry partner to create an immersive multimedia mobile tour experience unlike any other.
Called the Mobile Tour Experience, the effort by the American Battle Monuments Commission and INADEV Corp. aims to honor the service, achievements and sacrifice of the men and women of World War II, according Monique Ceruti, ABMC chief of knowledge management.
The project “represents our commitment to revolutionizing the way in which visitors interact with these solemn memorials on the National Mall and to continue to tell their stories for generations,” she said.
This is the first time image recognition has been employed in concert with geolocation to give visitors a seamless experience, said Vikrant Binjrajka, INADEV co-founder and chief technology officer.
“The challenges were enormous, but we couldn’t be more pleased about the revolutionary result,” he said.
The Mobile Tour’s content includes updated designs, war stories told by WWII veterans, memorial facts and a kid-friendly trivia game. The Mobile Tour is also being translated into Spanish, French, German, Korean, Japanese and Chinese to create a more immersive experience for visitors and guests.
Thanks to localized Wi-Fi and embedded content, visitors may download the Mobile Tour to their mobile devices without having to use their data plans.
“We wanted visitors to have unfettered access to every aspect of the experience without having to worry about using costly data downloads,” Ceruti said. “That’s exactly what we’ve done with this Mobile Tour.”
The Mobile Tour project was realized by ABMC, the National Park Service, Friends of the National World War II Memorial, the Trust for the National Mall, the U.S. Park Police and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio.
“Our mission is to honor and preserve the national memory of World War II,” said Holly Rotondi, executive director of Friends of the National World War II Memorial. “The new Mobile Tour will help ensure this celebrated history remains in the public consciousness for generations to come.”
A second Mobile Tour Experience will be launching in the coming months at the Korean War Veterans Memorial.