Startup Weekend Sheffield 2013 3rd place

Startup Weekend Sheffield 2013 3rd place

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Last weekend was Startup Weekend 2013 - a global startup event that takes place in 500 countries all over the world. I was in the Sheffield event and as it turns out my team finished in third place. We all knew we were up against some tough competition but were shocked when we actually came third out of seven startups!

UPDATE 2019: First place was Airstoc and second was GOODVIDIO who both survived a couple more years and raised over a million in funding.

The idea our team began with was to help visitors to Sheffield learn local dialects and accents. After spending Saturday morning interviewing random people around the town about this problem we found it wasn't a pressing issue. We did though find that international students and non natives found the local dialect humorous and entertaining.

After encountering problems discussing with locals about why they speak differently (they don't think they do) I resorted to just asking anyone who didn't look like a local if they could decipher a few bits of the local lingo:

"Does tha know where a reight gud bonny lass is?"

"Wheres tha gaffer?"

"...am chuffed are thee n all?"

I made a huge tit of myself (nothing new there) but for some reason the feedback was good. The local lingo wasn't causing a huge issue so we ended up adapting our idea and came up with Lingobytes.

Lingobytes will be a new web and mobile app where you can immerse yourself in the local lingo through visiting some common destinations. You can find out what the locals are saying in places such as the pub, the market and many more. Lingobytes lets you bite back at local dialect!

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