A small Irish start-up has signed a contract with The University of Manchester to develop a wellbeing mobile application for the institution’s 40,000 students and 10,000 staff members.
StudyBundles, which is headquartered at IT Sligo’s Innovation Centre, also has an office in Manchester, less than a mile from the University’s Oxford Road campus.
The innovative new software will utilise the latest native app technologies, building on the success of StudyBundles’ established CampusConnect product, which is already helping boost student enrolments for a number of leading Irish universities.
The company has also just signed a new contract to provide the CampusConnect app at Limerick IT and recently renewed its deals with the University of Limerick, Maynooth University and Letterkenny IT. StudyBundles is currently in talks with several other UK and Irish institutions on providing them with CampusConnect.
Two of the company founders — Declan Sweeney and John O’Hagan — spent several years living in Manchester and London before returning home to the West of Ireland to set up StudyBundles.
Declan and the third co-founder, Daniel Hinkley, were both lecturers before setting up the business and are “also former students at the University of Manchester. Daniel runs the company’s Manchester office.
The bespoke wellbeing app, developed for the University of Manchester, is an extension of StudyBundles’ CampusConnect app.
With advanced personalisation features, push notifications and geolocation functionality, the app will serve individual users with information tailored to them.
Details of wellbeing events and activities on campus and in and around the local area will be delivered according to user preferences, alongside real-time information about what is happening close by.
The University of Manchester is the largest single-site university in the UK and has the biggest student community of around 40,000 students and has 10,000 staff.
Declan Sweeney, StudyBundles CEO and co-founder said: “The University of Manchester is one of the most prestigious in the UK and this project is something we are really pleased to be involved in. This is major validation for us as a young business and an opportunity to build on the success of our core product, CampusConnect. The fact that Dan (Hinkley) and I are Manchester graduates makes this all the more pleasing and we’re excited to get started.”
StudyBundles, an Enterprise Ireland client, was founded in 2015 by lecturers Declan Sweeney, Daniel Hinkley and motion graphic designer John O’Hagan. The team was working as lecturers in London and Manchester when they came up with the idea for the business.
Photo caption:
The StudyBundles team (L-R): John O’Hagan, Daniel Hinkley & Declan Sweeney.