Culture is future » Innovation and digital

CULTURAL START-UP OF THE WEEK: APIdou

Next-up on our online cultural entrepreneur series, the Forum d’Avignon would like to introduce: APIdou is a cuddly toy and an API opended to a community of makers.

What is your company’s objective?

APIdou is a cuddly toy, a teddy, a soft and sensitive interface, a connected object for gown-ups and children. No button, no microphone, only touch and movement sensors, which enable to interpret a child’s gestures and giving him that way the possibility to interact with his environment.

An API opened to everyone and especially to a community of makers who develop many kinds of uses, games but also domotic.

APIdou may be used by a group of children, in an interactive show for instance where the young public may interact with the actors, the story or some elements of the setting.

What challenges do you face in your development? 

We imagined this object during a hackaton organised this Spring by the Adami. We are currently constructing it and it is complex... Next to the technology and the respect to the norms, we need the right design as well as to anticipate the uses and consider the costs and the production process.

And of course, even if there are measures to promote entrepreneurship, it is still not easy to find financial supports, to meet the good partners and to determine the right development strategy.

What does it mean to be a cultural entrepreneur?

Developing APIdou is like developing an artist! It is a unique creative project, which we hope will seduce the public… and reach success! 

To our scale, creating a connected object is a cultural act, even if it is part of an industrial process. Fab labs, like the Cité de l'Objet Connecté (Angers) - where we won a competition enabling us to develop our prototype - are creative places!

Be a cultural entrepreneur means feeling like changing the world!

It means putting ideas and creation at the center and searching by every possible means to go further.

Rémi Bouton (co-founder) and Ilann Adjedj (co-founder) 

Follow APIdou on... website, facebook, twitter

The web series : we’re interviewing cultural start-ups – Contact us!

As part of its web series on cultural entrepreneurship, the Forum d’Avignon is proud to present each week exciting stories on cultural start-ups.

This project is part of the Forum d’Avignon’s on-going work, in line with its 2015 agenda, on the ‘hybridization of economic models in cultural and on the manifesto on cultural entrepreneurship in creative industries (to be published soon).

To participate and promote your cultural start-up on the Forum d’Avignon’s website: please send to the address forum-avignon.org@orange.fr:

• A photo (website/founders/logo) in HD
• A video link presenting your project
• A short answer (2-3 lines, in English and French) to the following three questions:

                        - What is your project/idea/start-up?

                        - What is your current challenge?

                        - For you, what does it mean to be a cultural entrepreneur