Keep adventurers on track

Thanks to their incubation at the ESA centre, the two entrepreneurs behind the company, Drs Saartje Brockmans and Raphael Volz, realised their idea and turned it into a viable business. 

Today, 45 000 users have downloaded their app on to smartphones.

“Our nogago Maps is a specialised app for hikers and bikers which lets Android and BlackBerry users enjoy reliable, detailed maps and navigation with a global topographic display,” explains Saartje.

All navigation and search functions are available online as well as offline. The app offers hiking-, biking- or mountain biking-ways with routing optimised for individual needs and challenges.

The app is directly connected with the tracking-app nogago Tracks. Like this, recorded and stored satnav tracks can later be shown in nogago Maps.

“Compared to other systems on the market, nogago Maps works equally well outside of network coverage, consumes less battery power, giving more operational time and reduces expensive data charges for having to be online all the time,” notes Saartje.

“And we do not track people in any way as many of the other systems do nowadays. We guarantee full protection of all user data.”

The system won a prize in the European Satellite Navigation Competition 2009 and nogago was chosen as a top-10 business idea at the Start2Grow Business Plan competition 2009.

nogago Maps now include maps for the whole Earth and supports simple definition of any sort of free-time tour, anywhere. The app is provided in seven languages and offers two million site descriptions with images from Wikipedia and more than 30 million mapped points of interest.

Through its Technology Transfer Programme, ESA has eight Business Incubation Centres (BIC) in six countries to help start-up companies and entrepreneurs realise their ideas to use space technology and space-provided services to develop European businesses.

More than 200 new companies have already been launched, and another 75 are supported each year at the centres.