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Ski Club Mountain Companion

Client: Stu Bevan, Ski Club of Great Britain.

The Ski Club of Great Britain is a non-profit organisation that has been enabling people to ski together for over 120 years, giving people of similar abilities a way to ski together in resorts and on holidays. Its website (https://skiclub.co.uk) was one of the very first travel-related sites. The Club has started another round of radical transformation and wants to make the most of what technology can do, now and in the future, for its members' experience, their interactions and their safety: in resorts, on the mountain, and off season (walking, biking, climbing and so on). Your task is to develop a vision and a working prototype app for Android or iPhone that demonstrates some, if not all, of the capabilities below. The app must be mindful of battery life, security and the practical difficulties of using technology in what can be a hostile environment. Machine learning may make some goals more achievable, but it is not a requirement.

  • Navigation around a resort: planning a day based on ability; shared routes with real-time navigation; knowledge of mountain restaurants; integration with lift status.
  • Skiing together: staying in touch; finding each other when someone gets lost; getting help.
  • Ski touring and off-piste: a knowledge base of popular routes, integrated with weather and avalanche information.
  • In all cases: location-aware trip planning with transport networks (for example the rich API of Swiss railways, SBB); weather including avalanche forecasts; recording and sharing your day to build a database of experiences; integration with wearable technology; using VR to plan out a day; a community knowledge base.

Much of the information needed is available through free public APIs; credentials can be provided for other data, together with access to a corporate Apple developer account.