Tree Finder

Maria Padilla (Mexico), Blanca Astarloa (Spain), Carlotta von Peter (Germany), Elizaveta Bayankina

(Russian) and Paulina Yakhno (Luxembourg)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEgIBpjlVig

Pitch Video

• Westonbirt School is an independent school for girls aged between 11 and 18.

• Apps For Good was offered as an after school activity for approximately one hour a week for two terms.

• Westonbirt School can be found opposite Westonbirt Arboretum

Background

• Over 400,000 individuals visit the Arboretum each year.

• The Arboretum is seeking to increase the number of visitors and is targeting younger visitors (those under 27 years of age).

• We have identified an App that visitors could download on entry that would help them identify the key “crowd pleaser” trees in the Arboretum.

Background

• The staff at the Arboretum know they have 400’000 visitors, but they do not know how many are unique.

• We believe that up to 100’000 (one quarter) of their visitors will be unique and, perhaps, one quarter might consider buying a reasonably priced App.

• If the app cost £0.50 then we might expect an annual revenue of £12,500 which could be used to cover the running costs.

Background (Continued)

• We know that there is a market for this App because the Education Officer for Westonbirt Arboretum met us and expressed an interest in our ideas.

• The Arboretum are already investigating such an App, but they have not got as far as we have.

Background (Continued)

• Most visitors enjoy the Arboretum and they look at the trees, but with limited signage, they rarely know very much about each one.

• Our users will be able to point their iPhones at a QR code near the base of each tree.

• The QR code will be scanned and will reveal the type of tree, its Latin name and background information.

How Does It Work?

What Issue Is It Solving?

• Our App specifically solves the issue of visitor ignorance, visitor engagement and, crucially, youth engagement.

• With social networking features, such as uploading photos and a like button, young people will embrace the App as positively adding to their experience.

Competitors

• We were unable to identify any competitors in our screening process as there do not appear to be any similar products at present.

MVP

• As we have mentioned our App specifically solves the issue of visitor ignorance, visitor engagement and, crucially, youth engagement.

Feasibility

• This product is very feasible because the QR scanning technology is already widely used in commerce, e.g. BlackBerry Messenger offers the option of scanning QR codes to add contacts and The CocaCola Corporation uses QR codes to give more information about themselves to their clients.

Business Case

• If the app cost £0.50 then we might expect an annual revenue of £12,500 which could be used to cover the running costs

• This means that this product would make profits to the provider.

Marketing Strategy

• We would have to do very little in the ay of marketing as the app could be available along with the purchase of a ticket to the Arboretum.

• If a visitor wished to they could also visit the Arboretum website and follow a link to the App Store in order to download the App before they arrived.

Further Development

• This product could be very useful to plant centres.

• Visitors to plant centres could use the app to find out about plants without any help from staff.