Technology comes to the rescue of women in India. Every woman can have a personal cop, a bodyguard, in the form of the app ‘I Am Safe’ from MobiWhiz. Through the app, one can notify well-wishers and the nearest police station just by the press of a button in case of emergencies or sticky situations. The app also lets your family members or friends to track if the driver of your cab is taking you in the right direction – if you are travelling alone. The company aims at “discouraging eve-teasers and misbehavers entirely.”Varsha Adusumilli from Yourstory.in talks to Barani Kumar, Founder, MobiWhiz on how this app works and more. Read on..
Please tell us about I am Safe
Women safety is the highest concern when it comes to India and also in similar countries. I Am Safe is a mobile application targeted to provide women safety we are sure this app can provide comfort and safety to women, elders and college students who travel alone. It also enables parents to know that their children is safe.
Tell us in detail about the features of the app.
Some of the interesting features are:
- Just one time configuration for the phone number and time duration.
- It works with simple SMS interface so the recipient need not need to install this application.
- Users can long press any button (preferably volume) which would then send an alert SMS to the registered well-wishers, which would - in the version 2 - also be sent to a nearby police control room.
- The new version of the app has capability to send details of cab and autos like vehicle registration number and contact numbers.
- The app provides for local storage of all info, hence is network independent.
- The app can track - through the user’s mobile phone, if the driver is taking the occupant in the right direction or not.
How did the idea come about?
We as a company are developing applications which can create social impact. We also have other solutions which are citizen journalism based.
This idea was seeded when I was reading an Iphone app which can continuously take photos and send it to the server and also alert the Government when there is a natural calamity.
Reading about murders, kidnaps I reflected that the major problem currently is to trace the offenders, so we thought our app can also help in exact and quick investigation for the police - since the last location where the person would be already tracked and recorded by the app.
Why did you begin with android? Which are the next platforms in pipeline?
Android driven phones will soon be used by all segments of people in India and hence the reach will be more when compared to other platforms like the iPhone. Though we have in pipeline iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mango based app.
Is the app free / paid? How do you plan to monetize?
Its currently free, we don’t have any plans to monetize, but it can be easily monetized by integrating ads, also add some entertainment features like pushing the location based information to the women based on their area of interest for that day
How has the adoption been among women so far?
The interest level shown is really high, and almost each woman who saw the app downloaded it.
What kind of partnerships are you looking at, for scaling up?
As of now, we are looking for the support from Government who can help integrate the app with police control rooms in various locations.
What are the challenges that you feel in mobile app space India?
Smartphone adaptation level is still far way to go in India, as the mobile development company, we see huge potential in this space in India when it comes to Business and Enterprise applications.
Anything else that you want to share with us?
We have submitted this application in Vodafone women and innovation for mobile awards. The intention is to have more people think towards developing solutions towards the basic problems of women which still exist in India.
I Am Safe is a free app and one can find out more about the app here