SlangMeApp is the brainchild of nine London teenagers who took part in The City of London Young Entrepreneurs Tsu’Chu Biz Cup Final. Tzu’Chu Biz, curated by Tony Woodcock, former Arsenal and England international footballer and his partner Susan Kaye; teaches teenagers and young adults entrepreneurship with personal and professional development skills, helping them start up their own business ideas.

The City of London Corporation, the Star Charitable Trust, London Stock Exchange Group and the Pears Foundation sponsored all 80 of the 13-19 year olds who took part in the Tsu’Chu Biz initiative to attend 4 courses followed by a winners’ cup final event. The initiative uses the ‘magic’ of the game of football throughout as metaphors for learning. Arsenal FC provided club merchandise, special match tickets, a ‘legends’ tour of the Emirates stadium and the new Arsenal shirt for the cup winners.

Three teams made it through to the prestigious finals at The Guildhall London, one of which was team ‘Slang Me App’. The Slang Me App team consisted of Joanna Oduguwa, Latisha Brown-Costley and Timothy Ojo all aged 13/14 years from Eltham Foundation School in Greenwich.

Their idea was to produce a translation tool for London slang, what better way to do this than with a smartphone app. Their app was prototyped by Selesti to help them during the finals, the app translates street slang so parents, teachers, tourists and the police can better understand what youths are saying and to engage with what they are saying.

Each team were mentored by business volunteers. Slang Me App mentored by Rebecca Rose, Corporate Responsibility Manager at Aviva. Aviva invited Selesti to lend our digital expertise to help the Slang Me App team produce a fantastic pitch at the finals.

The judges, a who’s who of top management in The City and from the house of Lords announced that Slang Me App was the winner! They were so impressed that they donated half of the costs to develop the app, Selesti contributing the rest; app design, app development and responsive website build.

The aim was to launch the App in time for the London 2012 Olympics, to provide visitors a quick guide to how London youth speak.

We’re delighted to have contributed to Slang Me App’s business plan, pitch and production of the app itself!

The App is available in the App Store, it features a Slang Shake Randomiser – producing phrases at random – which you can share via Facebook and Twitter. The extensive database contains hundreds of words and phrases instantly available to check using an easy search tool.

You can use A to Z features like any dictionary, plus new words will be added continuously, growing the database to keep up with the ever changing trends of the language. Soon the app will feature sounds to help you pronounce the slang you have found correctly.