Llama Digital is one of the local winners in the Sheffield Smart Lab competition, in the “Energising the City Centre” category.

Llama Digital’s winning proposal was to build a ‘Culture Finder’ app that allows users to discover and explore venues and events in Sheffield. This will use Llama Digital’s mobile app platform Situate which allows venues to create a personal tour guide app for their visitors. Using Situate, venues can provide everything a visitor needs for self-guided familiarisation of a location: including maps, floor plans, audio commentaries and video. Using iBeacons and GPS, Situate can identify where the visitor is and automatically show them relevant content, or their position on a map or floor plan.

Situate also allows venues to engage with audiences who may not currently be actively visiting venues or events. For example people with disabilities, or people who don’t have English as their first language.

Other winners in this category are OverHear (event map app), Better Cities (high street collaboration) and G.A.P.S. (identifying underused space).

In the “Supporting People to Live Independently” category, the winners are Alcove (supporting independent living), Give&TakeCare (reciprocal care), GoodGym Sheffield (fitness), MindMate (dementia support) and Nana (nutrition data gathering).

Apologies for the brief info – full details on all the winners and finalists can be found on the SmartLab website. If you represent one of these projects, feel free to send us a brief press release for this site.

The winners will now participate in an incubation and acceleration programme, where they will be able to develop their idea, product or service in a ‘smart lab’  facility, supported by both the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, before showcasing it early next year.