Substrakt has been awarded £25,000 from the Technology
Strategy Board to help develop its Urban Lens API and iPhone app,
after the digital media and design agency was successful in its
application to the Feasibility Studies for Digital Services funding
competition.
The competition, which launched in January 2011, attracted 350
applications and was created to stimulate innovation in digital
services by helping smaller companies harness emerging growth
opportunities. From the applications submitted, only 80 were
granted funding which will go towards developing projects such as
the Urban Lens app.
Working in partnership with Junction Media, a digital media
company that helped to create the content, Substrakt devised and
developed Urban Lens to enable users to explore cultural
destinations and events in a new way. The app links together a host
of information about a range of topics in one place, helping the
user to navigate around a city.
Andy Hartwell, managing director at Substrakt, said: "Access to
different content about the same subject is often centred on a
specific venue or organisation. For example, information on where a
certain band is playing will be located on a different site to
information about how to access that band's back catalogue. This
often results in a keen user having to research, source and visit
multiple websites to discover what they need and want.
"It's fantastic that we have been awarded this funding from the
Technology Strategy Board. We are really keen to expand on the work
we do exploring different datasets and how these relate to each
other - it is a subject that we are very interested in".
Nick Appleyard, Head of Digital at the Technology Strategy
Board, said: "The aim of the funding competition was to help
smaller companies overcome the initial hurdles to development.
Substrakt's Urban Lens project addresses the core challenge of how
to enhance data within both public and private sector
organisations. We are delighted to support this project and look
forward to seeing how Urban Lens progresses".