We are very excited to announce that Waymap has been chosen for support by Innovate UK, the UK Government’s innovation agency.
This award recognises our breakthrough technology and the revolutionary impact it will have on accessibility and inclusion as well as on the relevance of indoor location and navigation across all industries. The significant grant funding represents a vote of confidence in our business and will be used to further develop our technology offering. By extending our product, we will deliver our cutting-edge location and navigation solution to a wider range of cities, transport networks and spaces both in the UK and around the world.
Innovate UK, the UK’s Innovation Agency
Innovate UK is a key part of the country’s science endeavour and was created with the aim of driving economic growth by supporting businesses in the development and realisation of new ideas. The objective is to help the most promising businesses turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. Waymap was a perfect fit for the scheme.
The Waymap Mission
Waymap’s successful application to the Innovate UK scheme was based on our breakthrough navigation solution. Our revolutionary technology, which powers the Waymap navigation app, is driven by a highly-sophisticated algorithm which fuses motion data from the sensors already on the phone to deliver signal-free live location and, from this, accurate and reliable navigation instructions, without external signals such as GPS, WIFI, or Mobile Data.
Waymap is driven by the fact that navigation apps are increasingly essential to life in cities and public transport, but the existing apps out there don’t work for everyone and don’t work inside for anyone. Without an accessible or sufficiently accurate solution, the potential of cities to thrive as spaces for everyone will be limited and people with disabilities will continue to be excluded, need extra help and resources to make a journey, or remain isolated at home.
Because Waymap’s breakthrough technology was developed for blind people, a group with perhaps the greatest navigational needs, and to enable independent living, we represent the potential for a huge advance on all other navigation apps. In pioneering signal-free indoor location and navigation, our technology will also enable a richer, fuller experience from the built environment and enable owners to make their spaces work better for more people than ever before. Any city or building where we create digital maps and make our app available will be fully accessible and inclusive to anyone, anywhere.
Beyond navigation and mobility, our signal-free location technology has many other applications and we will be developing these to offer opportunities across all areas of life in smart cities of the future.
A Partnership for the Future
This grant is a sign that UK Research and Innovation believe in our mission, understand the innovative technology that we have developed, and recognise the myriad of life-changing benefits that it will bring to a very large number of people in the UK and around the world.
The UK has long had a great tradition of innovation and technological discovery and, today, is home to companies and teams from all over the world that go on to have global success. Waymap is proud to be part of this story.
What’s Next? Looking Ahead to 2022
Our approach to navigation is the product of years of experimentation, trials and user research culminating in internationally recognised standards. This understanding and commitment to our users and continuous improvement will define our future as we deploy our navigation app in cities around the world and develop further policies. In the new year, watch this space for an exciting announcement about what will be a landmark site for Waymap and the next chapter in our technology journey. This summer we successfully agreed on a deal with a major city in North America and look forward to announcing our coming deployment.
