Two start-ups have been awarded a government grant of €15,000 each to develop mobile phone apps related to cultural heritage and development planning.

The cultural heritage app, to be developed by OTUS, will seek to enhance the visual and cultural experience of visitors to the Tarxien Temples through augmented reality, multi-lingual information and itinerary planning.

The development app, by LLUMI, will try to increase citizen participation in planning decisions, while also having a feature through which illegal development can be reported to the authorities.

The government’s IT agency, Mita, awarded the grants as part of the Start-APP €15K challenge – a competition targeting start-ups that had to come up with solutions for problem areas in the two fields. The technology had to use public data made available specifically for the project by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and Heritage Malta.

This proves our vision of the important role public administration has in stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship

The two winning start-ups were announced yesterday. Small Business Parliamentary Secretary José Herrera said he was impressed by the overwhelming response to the call and the quality of work delivered.

“This proves our vision of the important role that public administration has in stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship.

“These start-ups will not only be re-using public data to create a mobile app but they will also be using public administration processes as a test bed for their innovative solutions,” he said.