Nope, there isn't a typo in our headlines.

Two mid-life entrepreneurs, Calvin Soh and Saleem Jumabhoy, along with historian Tan Teng Teng, have teamed together to make an iPhone app, Time Travellr.

Sadly, the app is no DeLorean and you cannot really time travel with it, but it lets you view the history of a specific location. Through user submissions and geotagged photos, users can explore photos of past scenes on their iPhone.

“Time Travellr is all about the context,” Calvin Soh told Mothership in an email interview. “Imagine if there are 5 different points of view of the Little India riot. Or the Bukit Brown graves where we can see their achievements and contributions to Singapore. They become more than a burial site or a plot of land doesn't it.”

The idea is to preserve the ‘soul of Singapore’ through user submissions of historical stories pegged to locations.

The former public relations men – Soh is the winner of several public relations awards, including Cannes Lions, while Jumabhoy is a former Vice President of Marketing – want to preserve Singapore’s vanishing hawker heritage. “Imagine opening the app and being able to see local hawker stories, about their history and heritage,” Soh says. “We want to preserve our street food culture and encourage future interpretations and ideas.”

Mothership.sg caught up with both men last week to talk about their app.

1. How did you come up with the idea for Time Travellr?

We were brainstorming at Saleem's place. I said, "Hey how about being able to time travel throughout the world?"

Saleem said, "Yah, that could work. Be a great mobile platform." and that was it.

2. What's up with the missing 'e' in the name?

Because Time Traveller was taken.

3. I noticed you began your description on the website with 'Time Travellr is the creation of two Singaporean middle-aged mid-life crisis entrepreneurs.' Why that?

We quit our corporate jobs. Instead of the typical mid life crisis of taking up triathlons, buying a sports car, taking up yoga/meditation, we decided to act on our ideas and took the far harder path of being an entrepreneur.

4. I noticed you have your baby pictures on the Time Travellr website. Why is that?

We were so much cuter then. But seriously, we are all Time Travellr in this package tour called life. We all started somewhere and we wanted to trigger nostalgia and to remind us all of the travails we took to arrive at the present.

5. What do you wish to preserve with Time Travellr?

The soul of Singapore.

6. Well, the soul of Singapore seems a bit simple. Would you elaborate?

The soul of Singapore to us means the organic things that made us. Like Sungei Road. Once it's moved out, it's gone. You can see what it was like on a computer at home. But with TT, you can be in Sungei Rd when it's a mall and see what it really was. It's a window into the soul of the country. It gives you context.

Similarly if you're in Bukit Brown when it's an expressway, you can stand there and geo locate or time travel through all the different graves, the stories… It combines both virtual with the real world.

Imagine an app that I can turn on to see your past, present and future. Won't it give me a better understanding of you as a person? If I can also add my story within yours, doesn't that somehow make us closer or at least a little linked?

(The app) empowers every Singaporean. It's like enabling every Singaporean to have their own little street name, a little part of the country that is forever theirs.

7. Did you receive any public funding for this?

We have had a lot of support from the likes of Minister Chan Chun Sing and Lawrence Wong. They connected us to the various other ministries without which we wouldn't have gotten Time Travellr ready for SG50 and SG75 and SG100...

Public funding has some strings, which we felt would currently hold us back. We would gladly revisit those opportunities post launch.

8. Why only iOS? How about Android?

We would love to do both. But we are a start up. We are funding this with our children's education savings. So we have to start with one platform first and we picked iOS because it's the easiest to get to market.

9. Will you be taking the app overseas?

Absolutely. Time Travellr is a global platform that we are kicking off in Singapore first. The vision is to enable humanity to be more well travelled, so that humanity will be more compassionate, open minded and see (that) we have more in common than the petty differences that divide us.

10. How would you get people to use the app?

We believe there is a lot of latent interest in our past, present and future. If Bukit Brown had been demolished 15 years ago, would we have kicked up such a big fuss? It's only normal to be doing so as we mature as a society.

Singaporeans are finding our voice, our identity, and they want to be rooted to our home. We live in the participation sharing economy so it makes sense that history follows suit. Time Travellr is designed to fulfill that need.

Secondly, our heritage brands can reach people who value and appreciate that heritage. Too much of modern marketing has been about the new and we've forgotten our roots, the tradition, the stories that made them who they are. Time Travellr also doubles as their employee handbook/introduction. So they feel proud in the organisation they work in.

11. What are some of the personal stories you would like to share on the app?

The people's stories. Stories from our grandfathers of their struggles and how hard life was. Stories from our heartland HDB estates. Seriously, where are our recorded HDB stories from the 80s onwards? This missing chunk can now be time and geo stamped for all to see.

We did this for our children. We too were once children and we too rolled our eyes whenever our grandparents talked about the past. We thought that technology could create an immersive platform that can engage our kids and encourage them to explore at their own pace. And one day, become time travellrs themselves.

12. How about your personal stories?

Saleem likes to tell this story of his grandfather who said the grandson of Scotts (Scotts Road fame) lived in a big bungalow on the road. The British excommunicated him because he wore a sarong, smoked a bindi and married a local girl. Stories like these don't appear in history books. I'm sure there are many more out there and they give Singapore a richer texture and interest.

When my grandfather was very ill, he would dress up in his winter coat. Made my grandma do the same. We would take pictures of them under the hot blazing sun. For him, that was his way of going back to China one last time. I would share the stories I lived through in Singapore, the pain and joys. That makes it real to me and hopefully to my children too.

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