Screenshot via Travellog

Traveling is an integral part of NYU Abu Dhabi’s student culture, and the Travellog website created by sophomores Lingliang Zhang, Moïri Gamboni and Mariko Kuroda attempts to capture this online. The website recently won first place in the non-enterprise category in the worldwide Google Cloud Developer Challenge for the Middle East and North Africa region.

The competition involves developers from different regions across the world who can win prizes that include Android devices and up to 20,000 USD. They encourage innovations from students and female developers in fields most relevant to their everyday lives. Interested students can participate in the Google Cloud Developer Challenge by developing new applications using Google’s cloud platform. In the past, the best projects have been those that maximize the use of a wide range of Google applications.

When asked about the website, Zhang said, “It is an interactive space in which we encourage travelers to come and share their experiences.”

His inspiration to develop the website came from a spontaneous conversation with some friends.

“We were sitting by the pool table just talking about how cool it would be to have a space to share stuff about our travels,” Zhang said.

He pointed out that NYUAD has many travelers with many stories and that Travellog fills the demand for a sharing platform.

"There are people who write and people who love to take photos," Zhang said. "That means there is a lot of great content, but we lack a medium through which we can express it. The website is a means to facilitate this expression and exchange ideas."

Travellog uses Google Drive to store all the stories and thus requires a Google account. Travelers can add pictures, text, poems and other creative elements to embellish the descriptions of their journeys.

NYUAD freshman Annalisa Galgano said, “I think that the Travellog is a way to connect with other students by sharing fun travel experiences and leaving words of warning for future travelers.”

Yannick Trapman-O’brien, a senior at NYUAD, was involved in the development of the website. He said that he liked the idea of grouping posts by location. He also appreciated that the posts represented a mapping in terms of emotions and experiences rather than just geographical locations.

“I think that by arranging the work in this format … it tells a different kind of story than just our travels — especially once the volume of stories increases," Trapman-O’brien said. “I think it will be much more of a way of looking at commonalities and idiosyncrasies of cities and places.”

Since the website was meant for a Google competition, the creators attempted to use as much Google-related technology as possible. The servers run on Google App Engine, which is the same technology Google uses to run Gmail and other applications.

“It has deep Google Drive and Google Plus integration too, and of course it uses Google Maps,” Zhang said.

The developers said they faced little technical challenge from the project as the applications are relatively easy to use. What they found most difficult to do was to work in a group and capitalize on individual strengths. They felt that organizing such projects is always difficult, and it was further complicated with their demanding schedules.

When asked what advice he would give to novices, Zhang said, “The space between having nothing and having something real and tangible is very small. It’s all just a mental barrier, so don’t be daunted by seemingly big projects. If you haven’t made anything before, just start. And if you have, keep going.”