Exploring Travel 3.0

Alumni Anthony Hsiao and Nick Adams (both Electrical and Electronic Engineering 2007) have taken the plunge and moved to India to develop their software, EnTrip

After graduation both Anthony Hsiao and Nick Adams (both Electrical and Electronic Engineering 2007) were keen to start up a company in the internet domain; it was only when Nick went on a road trip in the United States in the summer of 2007 that an idea dawned upon them.

“Nick loves photography and wanted to have a good way of sharing his experiences and photos with friends and family at home. While he was on the road he wanted those following his trip to actually know where he was, and know what he was seeing and doing,” explained Anthony.

EnTrip was the result; it is an integrated, map-based travel utility that aims to service the needs of the emerging modern traveller. The sheer number of travel sites and resources on the internet can mean that when you’re planning a trip you trawl the internet for hours before you find the right information, EnTrip aims to integrate many internal and external online services into a single place – all represented on a full screen map.

Once the trip’s underway, travellers can share their experiences of particular places they’ve visited by sharing photos and writing blogs, again represented on the full screen map.

Anthony and Nick decided to relocate to India to develop their ideas, experience an exciting country and save on living costs. Anthony said: “I thought why burn my hard-earned savings in London if I could lie on the beach in an exciting country and pay about a fifth for five times the standard of living? So we moved to India - not exactly on the beach but in a Tech-City, which is as good as a beach for an Electrical and Electronic Engineering student.

“It has benefitted the business in that it has enabled us to network with the Indian start up scene and give us access to affordable resources to help us develop the system. There are always tradeoffs, like as I am writing this, we had an unexpected power cut, but we have decided to settle in India for our technical development because it's exciting here!”

 Travelling around India, between Goa, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, Anthony and Nick have been able to test EnTrip for themselves. Anthony explained: “We are still at an early stage of development and our agile development model means that we’re constantly evolving and changing, so we have to try EnTrip for ourselves.”

If you’d like to find out more about EnTrip, please visit www.entrip.com.