Exeter graduate and Kompas App co-founder Tom Charman has been invited to give a TEDx talk this month – asking audiences: “Are We Ready for the Future of Technology?”
Charman announced the event on Facebook on 2 October, telling followers he was “happy to be able to offi0cially confirm” his first ever TEDx talk, held at Royal Holloway University on 22 October.
“Giving a TED talk has always been at the top of my bucket list,” he told Exeposé.
Charman graduated in July with a BSc Hons in Economics and Politics with European Studies. Since then, he and fellow Exeter graduate Olivia Higgs have worked full-time on the innovative travel app Kompas, which the pair co-founded in 2014. The app has launched for BETA testing in London, Berlin and Munich.
“we’re so keen on leading the way by using this innovative technology.”
Higgs and Charman began work on Kompas while studying abroad in Munich in 2014/15. The venture was formerly called Hidden Planet, launching with the Hidden Munich blog, which has since amassed over 19,000 Instagram followers. The pair then teamed up with designer Kurt Henderson to develop plans for an app which builds “travel recommendations based on each individual user, as opposed to generic suggestions around a city.”
The technology used in the app was the inspiration for Charman’s talk, which focuses on artifi cial intelligence, biohacking, and quantum computing.
“After starting KOMPAS with Olivia, Doug, and, Kurt I found myself fall quickly into Artificial Intelligence and trying to get a better understanding of where I see KOMPAS going,” he said.
“Artificial intelligence is key to personalisation, which is why we’re so keen on leading the way by using this innovative technology.”
The team were in Copenhagen representing Kompas at the University Startup World Cup in early October. “We’re building corporate partnerships with a number of organisations, and we’ve secured partners that will help us push out to a wider audience in the next few months,” Charman said.
A BETA version of the app is available at www.kompasapp.com.
