The Vrije Universiteit Brussel has a new spin-off. The ground-breaking weave.ly platform allows anyone to build fully functional software prototypes such as mobile applications, dashboards, new front ends on existing backend systems or IoT systems, without the need for programming skills. Moreover, these prototypes automatically collect usability data to test the new product. Weave.ly enables companies to quickly create new digital products and validate their ideas before launching and thus before allocating large budgets and resources to them.
Weave.ly, founded by two former PhD researchers, Florian Myter and Jesse Zaman, is a spin-off of VUB’s Software Languages Lab, headed by Prof Wolfgang De Meuter. It builds on Zaman’s PhD thesis, in which he developed a platform that allows people without coding skills to quickly build web applications such as mobile apps by clicking “software building blocks” together using visual drag & drop components, without having to write a single line of programming code.
Florian Myter, co-founder of weave.ly: “Eighty percent of new or innovative software projects fail within a year. This is due to the fact that a working version of an innovative software product is required before it can be thoroughly tested. This is expensive and time-consuming. With weave.ly, you can test before launching.”
The spin-off has now adapted this technology to solve two problems at once. In the words of Zaman – “With weave.ly, companies can now develop prototypes without having to program, and therefore at a fraction of the normal cost. Moreover, weave.ly prototypes automatically track a wide range of usability metrics, such as click heatmaps, eye tracking, time-on-task, time-on-page, etc, providing invaluable insights and feedback regarding the validation of the new digital product.”
Prof De Meuter: “Thanks to weave.ly, innovation and software development is no longer reserved for the happy few with coding skills.”
The spin-off was set up with the support of the Vice Rectorate Innovation & Valorisation and VUB’s IOF (Industrial Research Fund) Council. During the research phase, the software platform was further developed with support from the Agency for Innovation & Enterprise (VLAIO) and Innoviris.
