Yusuf Yilmaz honored at Shift APPens for app inspired by Erasmus experience, combining culture and gamification
A Turkish computer engineering student has won first prize at a major international tech event in Portugal with an AI-powered travel guide app inspired by his experience abroad.
Yusuf Yilmaz, a student at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, developed the app after facing challenges while traveling across Europe during a five-month Erasmus exchange in Portugal last year.
His project, an interactive travel assistant that promotes cultural awareness through games and quizzes, earned first place in the “Gamification” category at Shift APPens 2025, a prominent software and innovation event held in Portugal.
The app uses location data to generate real-time questions about nearby cultural landmarks and assigns tasks that encourage users to explore their surroundings.
Currently available as a demo on web browsers, Yilmaz plans to launch a mobile version of the app in the coming months.
- ‘Winning first place was my dream since last year'
Speaking to Anadolu, Yilmaz said the idea came from his own travel experiences.
“Last year, I traveled across various European countries during my Erasmus stay in Portugal. I enjoyed learning about the cultures of the places I visited—that's where the idea came from,” he said.
“Winning first place was my dream since last year. This was my second time joining the competition. I also participated while I was an Erasmus student. The hospitality I experienced there drew me in. Even before last year's competition ended, I had already made up my mind to return this year. I completed the project and presented it to the jury—and I won.”
Yilmaz said that manually preparing questions and content for each location would have taken a significant amount of time, so he incorporated artificial intelligence to automate the process.
Language models “can work like a human, generating reliable information,” he said. “A regular user can do this with AI — and so can my app.”
- How the app works
Yilmaz explained that when users search for a city or share their location, the app retrieves relevant cultural information automatically and presents it in short, user-friendly formats.
“It's designed to work as if you're using a phone or a computer, but it operates completely automatically in the background, delivering bite-sized answers,” he said.
The app assigns exploration tasks around the city and guides users to key cultural spots — a helpful tool for first-time visitors.
As users complete these tasks and answer questions, they earn points that can be redeemed for discounts through the app's internal marketplace.
“You have fun while exploring and gain something in return,” Yilmaz said, adding that all visited locations are saved to the user's profile so “nothing is ever lost.”
