That's how we called it.
Romania is one of the very few outposts for alternative sports in wilderness. So... why don't we create an app with all our Romanian playgrounds? Chalets, huts, tracks, pistes, slopes, bike parks, snow parks, off-piste routes. Everything in one place!
The platform.
Atlas of Sports is the ultimate platform for alternative sports. Born in the city, raised for adventure. Whether in the mountains, the wilderness, in remote destinations or in the countryside, Atlas of Sports is one click away to inspire and empower alternative athletes push their limits - to seek new routes, new lines or new distances and to follow their passions!
Get to know the platform
Atlas of Sports gives people the chance to rediscover the world and nature through alternative sports. It makes it more accessible to people to find out the options they have. Be it in advance, while planning a trip, or somewhere in the mountains, in the middle of a storm, Atlas of Sports gives you precious info about the mountain infrastructure we all need.
How difficult is your route? How many springs are there? Do you need any special equipment? How bad are the conditions in a specific hut? You can find all these details in our app.
Background.
The Greek Government funded an app that maps all beaches, watersport centers, points of interests, etc.. We just liked the app so we wanted to bring it to Romania. Since we found many outdated databases, we rolled up our sleeves and started to work on this. We would love to share with you some numbers regarding playgrounds, but no one really knows how many there are. We really mean it: no authorities, no private. So nobody knows what we have, what we need to preserve, what we need to improve, what we need to fix. Nobody knows how large is our mountain sports infrastructure and how much people can play in the nature.
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Mountain Tracks
Chalets and Huts
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Off-Piste Routes
Features
Primary
Creating a database of all Romanian mountain sports infrastructure points of interests. Users will access a list and a map to identify the most appropriate place to go or where is the closest one to their geolocation.
Useful, right?
Secondary
Users update info about their points of interest, to give back to the community. So when they arrive at one of these points of interests, they update the status of that place: conditions, pics, prices, any other useful observations.
Sounds familiar?
Purposes
INFRASTRUCTURE
The main purpose of the app is to create a database in which users may find chalets, huts, mountain tracks, climbing routes, pistes, slopes, bike parks, snow parks, off-piste routes, and other relevant landmarks together with comprehensive details about their status, prices, conditions, coordinates or warnings.
EDUCATION and SAFETY
It feels naturally for a beginner to ask for tips and tricks regarding the equipment needed for a specific trip. Each landmark listed in the app will redirect the user to a page in which relevant details about the needed equipment may be found. At the same time, restrictions or safety warnings (e.g. avalanche, blocked road, bears) will be launched for everybody in the area of a landmark.
POLLUTION and AUTHORITIES
How does it sound to be in the middle of the forest, report a deforestation through the app and relevant authorities to receive an alert immediately? Water pollution, fires, vehicles that entered National Parks, all of them represent real threats to our playground: Mother Nature. The app will be able to create statistics and reports based on these warnings.
COMMUNITY and SERVICES
It's nice to know how many people are on a specific track during a specific day and time so users can plan ahead their trip. But it is also nice to know where you may find a service for your bike, a rental shop, or a mountain guide. What about specific sport events that take place exactly when you scheduled your mountain trip? It feels good to be connected with the whole community in just one app.
Sources of funding
Big projects need big and diverse amount of resources. At this initial phase of the Atlas of Sports app, our goal is to increase the user database and gather as much information as possible on the field.
EU Funds
We discovered that there are many funds through Erasmus+ for sport projects. So... we started to develop a mobility project that lets us bring experts to Romania from Germany, Austria, Switzerland or Italy in order to map the landmarks together, to share know-how and to learn how other countries manage to protect and expand their infrastructure for sportive and touristic purposes.
Sponsorships
Before receiving an EU grant, we need some funds to create a Minimum Viable Product, an alpha version of the app that helps us promote the idea, attract international partners and make it clearer to everybody:
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how does it work?
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why is it useful?
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is it self-sustainable?
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how many people are going to use this app regularly?
Donations
We also rely on the community to support our efforts. In any way they can. As much as they want.
Programs / Incubators / Accelerators
Attracting private funds through various methods is a priority for the Atlas of Sports team.
Goals
Our goal is to raise a total of 25.000 EUR from sponsorships and donations in order to create an MVP that fulfills our (and your) needs. We can then know how to pivot our idea before applying for European funding.
We can start working on the MVP as soon as we receive initial funds. The building of the full app is expected to start in January 2025, and finish at the end of 2026.
We will then allow paid posts in the app in order to be financially sustainable.