UCL has revealed that it will soon get its very own app store courtesy of epayments firm Worldline.
Students, graduate entrepreneurs, staff and small businesses will be able to test their apps by making them available via the internal store, which utilises software developed by the Atos subsidiary, getting feedback before taking them to market.
The agreement between the university and Worldline effectively turns UCL into a 32,000-strong testing ground for new products and services, and furthers collaboration between the institution and the epayments business after teams from the university have entered the Atos Global IT Challenge for the last two years.
Timothy Barnes, director of UCL Advances, its centre for entrepreneurship, said: "This collaboration is a win-win for both UCL and Worldline.
"For UCL and the businesses we support it means access to software enabling large-scale product testing before release onto the market, meaning more technically refined and appealing services for the public.
"This new relationship will dramatically increase the scale of their collaboration in mobile technologies."
Dominique Rerat, Worldline CEO in the UK, added: "To be collaborating with UCL on an initiative of this nature is truly exciting given the significance that app stores already play in our personal lives and their undoubted evolution into the working environments.
"We look forwards to a fruitful and hugely beneficial working relationship together on this project."
