UKESNC winner 2012
The UK ESNC winner for 2012 was iGeolise with their Travel Time Platform proprietary software.
The thought behind the idea
iGeolise began in 2009 when Charlie Davies, who had just graduated from Cardiff University, had the idea that it was more useful to find content on the web by the time it takes to travel there, rather than by distance. Since then, Charlie and a team of developers have built the Travel Time Platform that “turns distance into time.”
33% of all searches are for location specific information, the data, powered by the GPS satellite system, has traditionally been filtered by distance – ‘within x miles’. By changing the parameters, for example, ‘show suitable houses within 45 mins commute by public transport, to arrive by 9.00am’ or ‘show restaurants within a 20 min walk of my hotel’ searches through the Travel Time Platform typically double the relevant results compared to a ‘within x miles’ distance based search, and ultimately boost conversion rates.
The Travel Time Platform is a world-first, with a granted UK patent (and pending in the US) - and is live across the UK, the east & west coasts of the USA, and Thailand.
Impact of the ESNC on the business
“Winning the UK leg of the European Satellite Navigation Competition transformed our business”, says Co-Founder and Director, Peter Lilley. “On the strength of winning, we achieved national publicity which brought in our very first client. This has acted as a springboard to attract further clients and by the end of 2014, we expect to turn over in the region of £1m.”
Business growth
The Countrywide property group were the first company to sign-up to the Travel Time Platform. They are the largest group of estate agents in the UK and own the search site propertywide.co.uk, which is now connected to the Travel Time Platform. Compared to the old ‘within x miles’ search filter, Countrywide are seeing a ‘double digit’ increase in conversions (house hunters who click through for property details, or to book viewings), and are now rolling out the functionality across the Hamptons brand (their largest estate agency group).
IGeolise is also working with property search site Zoopla, and Visit Britain, the national tourism agency.
Watch the ESNC launch film to see how the competition has transformed the business of iGeolise.
UK ESNC 2012 runner up
The runner up for the ESNC UK competition was TeamSurv, an innovative project to community source and share navigation data. Installing one of the company's data-loggers on-board navigation instruments, mariners are helping to improve the accuracy of coastal water information and uploading data to the web for processing and display.
The thought behind the idea
For sailors, knowing the depth of water beneath your boat is crucial – particularly to avoid running aground or damaging your hull.
The challenge is that less than 50% of Europe’s coastal waters are adequately surveyed, and in many parts of the world over 80% are totally unsurveyed. With the cost of professional hydrographic surveying in the region of €25,000 per square mile, investment tends to be focused on shipping lanes into and out of ports, with charts of other areas often displaying data collated over 150 years ago. But it is inshore, including estuaries and bays where the seabed is changing dramatically.
TeamSurv aims to recruit the 9 million seagoing ships and boats, to have them collect up-to-date information about what lies beneath the surface. By providing a small data logger to connect to on-board navigation systems, TeamSurv can collect and process the voyages of boats and build up a more detailed map. The data is then published online, and made available for use by other organisations such as hydrographic offices, nautical chart publishers, port and harbour authorities, oceanographers and offshore engineers.
TeamSurv was initially developed in the CoSuDEC EU FP7 research project by Smartcom Software and MPG. Since then it has been spun out into a start-up company, driven by marine cartographer and keen sailor Tim Thornton, and software engineer Monika Gotsova.
Impact of the ESNC on the business
"With the support of ESNC the company has generated a significant amount of publicity on the BBC and other media," says Tim Thornton. "This has raised our profile, resulting in more boats signing up to participate, and greater credibility from support agencies and potential partners."
Business growth
To date, TeamSurv has engaged almost 300 boats in the project, with funding secured for the next stage of product development and successful trials completed in the UK, France and the Baltic, and operations now expanding to the USA and South Pacific.
Since being awarded Runner Up in 2013, TeamSurv has also won a European Space Agency competition for business incubation at their UK site in Harwell.