A HOLYBOURNE man and his business partner – both ‘flyers’ with a major British airline – have launched a second fun travel app for children and young travellers.

Steve Slater and fellow cabin crew colleague Stuart Lawrencelaunched NK London Adventures in abbreviated ‘lite’ form in Marchwith the full version in April andhave now taken “a bite out of the Big Apple” with NK New York

Adventures Lite.

Both are family men with children, who have been the major motivation and also a “great test bed” for the apps, which have developed into a new business but

with an opportunity to use the characters to support fundraising initiatives.

According to Steve, while he is the creative one Stuart is the technical expert and together they have managed to produce a fun learning experience for children between the ages of five and 11 (key stage one and key stage two).

In explaining the thinking behind these imaginative and colourful educational apps, Steve said: “Sometimes in life a small seed becomes a mighty tree. This is the story of how a small idea grew to become part of the Apple app family tree.

“A few years ago I created a character I called Nighty Knight (NK). Initially it was intended to be used as a photo luminescent (glow in the dark) wall sticker for

my three young children, as a comfort nightlight (hence the name).

However, I quickly realised the knight had a certain appeal and could be used in a number of ways including, as it turns out, for fundraising.

“With the help of my good friends and graphic designers Garry and Claire Hicks, from Iris Design and Artwork based in Alton, I was able to transpose my artistic ideas into a graphic medium. We created a number of different characters, the first of which were known as the Flight Knights. Through the promotion of

baggage tags and key rings featuring the knights, which we sold to colleagues at work, we managed to raise thousands of pounds for children’s charity Dreamflight.

“I then looked into enhancing the knights in different ways but found the development costs to be astronomical. It was only through a chance meeting with a colleague at work that things started to move rapidly forward. I work for a major British airline as worldwide cabin crew, and my new business partner,

Stuart Lawrence, is also a flyer.

“Using travel as our theme, we put a plan together to develop an interactive learning app for children.

The idea was to help them find their way around unfamiliar cities. We chose London as our first location.

“The app is a character-driven, interactive guide to 41 of London’s most popular attractions, both historical and modern. Each individual knight is a visual reference to an historical or popular figure, blended with the attraction itself.

Pressing on a knight will allow access to our unique ‘facts & rhymes’ area, a video zone, and a short quiz. Answering all questions correctly gains the player a

gold coin. For younger adventurers, there is a printable colouring map and our own ‘Trump It’ cards.

“Nine language videos allow our friends from different countries to have an understanding of London and offer children the chance to hear a different spoken language.”

Having flown to New York together, the pair chose the Big Apple as their next target, using “four score and seven knights” to help young travellers to enjoy the

wealth of character the city has to offer.

Steve explained that to make these apps available on the Apple Store, he and Stuart first had to become app developers and then submit their ideas to Apple for approval before they could be distributed.

The free ‘lite’ version offers a taster of the fully interactive NK London and New York Adventures, which can then be bought through the Apple Store (NK New

York is yet to come out in full).

Steve said: “Although these apps were first intended for the young, we have found that they appeal to all age ranges and that they are especially popular in the Far East and Asia.”

And he added: “The aim of our project is to help children and young people discover the treasures of our capital cities while interacting with each other and

having fun.”