Cartography students at the congress DIGITALE WELTEN 2026

DIGITALE WELTEN 2025, a congress for geoinformatics and geodesy, took place on 27 January 2026 in the city hall of Dresden. Every year, this event offers a platform for face-to-face meetings with representatives of public administration, science and companies through open specialist discussion and personal exchange of opinions. The congress is accompanied by a trade exhibition of Saxon and national institutions and companies.

One session of this congress is dedicated to education and research, and selected students can briefly present their projects or theses. Four of our international cartography students were given the opportunity to introduce their project for the "Mobile Cartography" module, which is taught at TU Dresden. Last winter term, the focus was on designing mobile maps for elderly people.

The project is a mobile map application called FootLoose.  The app created by Betty Selena Castro Benavides (Ecuador), Beatriz Oliveira de Carvalho (Brazil), Lesly Bautista Buendia (Peru) and Madeleine Boyles (USA) aims to support social participation through dance, an activity offering numerous physical, cognitive and mental benefits for older people. The main goal of the application is therefore to foster and improve the well-being of elderly people by facilitating access to local dance activities through an elderly-friendly app design.

The application is designed to be elderly-friendly by minimizing information overload and consistently offering access to the same core sections. The different screens are designed so that information is presented in a clear and accessible way, with functions and buttons placed ergonomically and displayed at appropriate sizes and spacing. Moreover, throughout the app, FootLoose introduces “Dorito,” an elderly helping buddy who interacts with users and helps them find and understand the available functions.