Broadcaster of Experiences since 2011

The BaladoDiscovery platform was launched by the non-profit organization L’Aire de jeu in 2011, with financial support from the Canada Interactive Fund (Government of Canada). This unifying project, which contributes to reducing the ecological footprint, was intended to be unprecedented in several respects as soon as it arrived on the market.  

The technological component of BaladoDiscovery was developed for the most part with the collaboration of students (and ex-students) in computer science from the University of Sherbrooke (in Quebec) from 2011. The platform continued to be reviewed and improved in part by them over time.

These talents brought together have been…

• Precursors of the first network of guided tours on mobile application bringing together the offers of multiple organizations on the same platform (2011).

• Developers of the first interface allowing multiple organizations to manage their guided tours 100% independently (2011).

• Developers of the first app offering an offline option to pre-load many guides from different agencies into one app (2011).

In addition to the visibility and ease of access to the experiences, the creators of unique guides can offer visitors to use a free platform that only recommends filtered informative content, free of unwanted advertising, which works everywhere with its application (even without an Internet network during the visit experience), without any account to create when using it and without any payment to make to access the most popular utilities.

BaladoDiscovery is a start-up resulting from exceptional teamwork. The founder of the network is Gérald Gilbert, a former filmmaker participating in the program La Course Destination-Monde on CBC french network. He emphasizes having felt the beginnings of the original idea following this adventure where he was awarded the UNESCO prize as well as the prize from the International Development Research Center. A few years later, following a series of professional experiences, not without certain pitfalls at times, the original concept resurfaced. Good timing, the addition of key collaborators and a favorable context made the development of the technological component possible. 

Among the creators of the first hour, we find Marc Desfossés, one of the main programmer-analysts of the technological innovation component. At the same time, the content of the platform has continuously improved over time, while hundreds of partners use its management interface. BaladoDiscovery exists thanks to this convergence of collaborations. All added content happens to be supervised and filtered: bad content and unwanted ads are removed, a feature sought and particularly appreciated these days.

The network is funded by the hundreds of organizations and cities that are part of it. In return, they obtain not only an original discovery tool to offer their visitors, but also the visibility of the largest network of guided tours of its kind in America.

The platform aims to offer experiences from the Canadian market as well as the French-speaking market across America, considering that this approach facilitates a distinct, concentrated promotion, which is attractive and appreciated by visitors. It has grown by expanding its target market by steps, without seeking to grow in an anarchic way, while avoiding presenting sassy content.

BaladoDiscovery is, nowadays, a platform bringing together hundreds of regional collaborators and partners concerned about the quality of the offer, who participate in the creation of their local content and promote it. The platform distributes this content and makes it accessible to visitors with mobile phones, whether online and/or offline (without Internet once in the field), with or without the application.

BaladoDiscovery is registered with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and is self-financing. The initiators of the project would also like to thank the many regional organizations and collaborators who participate in the creation of historical content as well as Canadian Heritage, which believed in this concept and supported it financially from the very beginning.