First coined in a 2009 Apple iPhone commercial, “There’s an app for that” has become a ubiquitous phrase in a smartphone-fueled world. A new campus initiative, GT Journey, hopes to curate campus applications, content, student research and immersive experiences for and by the Georgia Tech community.

The Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) launched the three-year initiative to develop a platform for creating and sharing apps, augmented reality experiences and other technological solutions.  

“We view this as a living laboratory for inventing the future of the university,” said Beth Mynatt, director of IPaT.

During its first year, GT Journey will launch a student activity center for location-based apps and data services. The GT Journey support team will provide development tools and data, such as GTmob and Argon, and a physical App Lab where students of all majors and levels of expertise can work and collaborate.

In the future, GT Journey will recruit students and alumni to contribute ideas for applications and services. The eventual goal is to develop a thriving online ecosystem of applications, experiences and crowd-sourced content by drawing on the Tech community’s ideas, data and talent.

For now, developers can get started by building on GTmob, and even nondevelopers can contribute content to augmented reality campus tours and submit ideas to GT Journey.

Further opportunity exists for students to promote their creations in next month’s Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC). Participants will work with campus experts who provide data and domain knowledge, and winners will be able to put their apps or experiences into production for use by the campus community. The deadline to submit to the fall competition is Thursday, Nov. 1.