BENGALURU: A city-based startup and India Post are collaborating to create public awareness on Bengaluru’s culture and heritage by releasing a set of showcasing the city’s landmarks. Post-Master General, Bangalore Region, Colonel Aravind Varma, told The New Indian Express that the startup MovingUp Products has developed an application to facilitate the process.
The startup’s founder, Vivek Mahaveer Jain, said, “There is a disengagement of youngsters with the history and culture of a place. We want to use technology to engage them. A simple app ‘FlippAR Go’ has been developed by team based on augmented reality technology.”
“All one needs to do is open the app and scan the picture (on the postcard). A video running between 45 seconds and a minute, along with audio and subtitles in English will open, giving details of the landmark,” Jain said.
Explaining the concept, Jain said that 30 designs have been put in place for Bengaluru alone. “For instance, illustrations of the State Central Library in Cubbon Park, the Glass House in Lal Bagh, Bull Temple, India Coffee House, Vidhana Soudha and the razed down Plaza Theatre, figure among our designs,” Jain said.
Each post card is priced at Rs 50 and the location is written on it. There is a provision to paste a stamp on the back with space for the addressee along with directions to learn about the landmark using the ‘FlippAR Go’ app, which is available on Google Play Store for android phones and App Store for iPhones.
He said they plan to have a stall exclusively for these cards at the Museum Road Post Office or at the GPO.
“We plan to have a stall at the airport owing to the huge influx of tourists to the city. Discussions have begun in this regard,” said Colonel Varma.
The group has already printed 2,500 such post cards and batches of them have been distributed at Blossoms and Goobe’s Book Republic on Church Street, and at hostels in the city and these are quite popular, Jain said. “We have already done 13 designs on Mysuru, 10 on Hampi and 10 on Chennai. The team expects to showcase them during the upcoming National Postal Day on October 10,” he added.