Last week, we had the pleasure of presenting Xablu’s tips & tricks to the contestants of the MyGalileoApp Competition 2019 organized by the European GNSS Agency (GSA). The competition calls for creative mobile application ideas that could benefit from the precise positioning offered by Galileo. Now, the 30 selected teams will embark on the next stage of the competition where we, from Xablu, will act as mentors.

In 2016, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), called Galileo, went live. It was created by the European Union through the GSA. Galileo can provide high-precision information on our location, which is crucial for daily life activities. Location is the driving force behind many domains such as logistics and transport, which are indispensable in countless sectors such as agriculture, automated mobility, and healthcare.

The MyGalileoApp Competition received 148 innovative application ideas. Of these applications, 30 teams have been selected to partake in the second phase of the competition. During this phase, the teams will be supported by mentors and Xablu is honored to provide some of these mentors for the contestants.

Xablu knows, like no other, how important it is to solidify a concept before starting to build an application. Only by ensuring the solution matches the problem, the usability matches the user and the application fits the context, the application has a higher chance of being adopted and delivering the impact it is meant to have. The GSA works with the same mission while linking space to user needs: “While constantly working closely with a broad range of stakeholders, we ensure that the EU satellite navigation systems are fit for purpose and continue to meet the needs of those who use them today and tomorrow.

By helping them work together with their users, their chances of building a successful application increases immensely. Together, we can determine their stakeholders, create a plan of action for testing their application and evaluate the usability. It might seem that this work will take away time from the actual coding of the application but executing this process will save the contestants a lot of coding work and, thus, time since many issues are solved prior to development.

Moreover, Xablu has the technical expertise to help contestants realize their applications. Xablu builds applications through Xamarin, which allows for creating one shared-code base. This way, applications can be built for Android, iOS, and Windows with native app features and a native app feeling, while reusing a large percentage of your code-base. This allows for very efficient cross-platform development.