Mobile phone application to ensure women's safety soon

In order to ensure women in City feel safe and secure at night, as also from being stalked, teased or ragged, a group of volunteers comprising civil society, has come under the umbrella of socialcops.org to provide assistance to them.

According to socialcops.org Bangalore representative and SAFE Team Head Avinash Kothari they are currently working an a safety application for women — SAFE, which can be used to send a text message when the person senses danger  to connect with one of the volunters who will rush to the spot in the shortest span of time. SAFE, according to Kothari, intends to bring in ‘first responder’ concept to make roads safer for women.

Incidentally, socialcops.org, is a Delhi-based outfit, founded by seven member team drawn from various strata of society, harnessing citizen voice to solve real-life problems.

Through use of technology, socialcops.org enables creation of connected and synergistic communities for efficient flow of information, highly engaged citizens and efficient feedback systems. 

Socialcops.org, according to its website, works with community stakeholders ranging from public agencies, corporates, NGOs to local volunteer groups and resident welfare associations to solve a spectrum of real life problems ranging from civic issues, women’s safety and public health.

The applicataion, says Kothari, can be downloaded free of cost and used on all smart phones. Along with the message, the software application will also send the location of the person sending the text with the help of global positioning system.

The team will be associated with non government organisation (NGO), Jagran, that helps women choose the right route to take. The NGO has come up with database which tells the safest route to take back home or while travelling from an area to another, explained Kothari.

However, Nivika Kaur, BPO employee who travels from M G Road to Hebbal, wondered about the efficiency and efficacy of the concept.

“I might be able to send messages. But how fast another person can approach me is the question. Moreover, how much of assistance they can be is also to be answered,” she said. The application is expected to be ready in December.