Stop Honor Killing
Project/Organization Name: FightBack
Initiated by: Tech Mahindra Ltd.
About the project: FightBack mobile application (www.FightBackMobile.com) is aimed to facilitates women’s safety so that they can move freely anywhere with confidence, keeping their friends and family stress free. Mobile phone was the obvious choice to deliver this solution to the users because of its reach, capabilities and accessibility. Solution uses mobile capability like GPS, SMS and GPRS along with email and Social media integration to deliver its three core objectives.
1. Safety to Women- Prime objective of the app is to facilitate women’s safety through a mobile app. Application tracks user’s location and update to backend server at defined time interval. No location data is published until the panic button is pressed but once the user presses the panic button, SOS SMS and emails are sent to the selected friends and family of the user.
2. Public Awareness- Providing safety alone to women cannot bring down the crime rate against women and need involvement and participation from people. FightBack send SOS updates to people registered with the application and inform them about alerts and also share the alert’s location. Application also helps in identifying the unsafe areas based on Alerts data. This data can be used by people to avoid unsafe zones at the same time it can also be used to improve the infrastructure of the identified places to make it safe for women.
3. Community Mobilization- The dream of safe cities for women cannot be fulfilled without a massive support from the society and with Facebook integration FightBack is trying to mobilize community against this social issue. This would help people to build pressure on the civic agencies and government bodies to implement infrastructural changes in the affected areas to make it safer for women. The FightBack mobile app has vast applicability and it is not just limited to women Safety but the app can be used by anyone who is vulnerable and need immediate help; app can be used by elderly people, people with serious health issues and it can also be used by the enterprises for their employee’s safety. FightBack supports wide range of devices with different OS, resolution and capabilities to maximize its reach on the devices.
Scope of case study: Fightback is associated with many NGOs those are working for Women and Child welfare activities and the solution is being offered to public through various platforms. NASSCOM has also recognized the solution for the best application for the women empowerment category. There are also regular workshops and awareness session in various universities and companies by our senior management staff to make people know about such tools. The response is excellent and there are huge downloads of the app. There are more than 45000 girls using this solution as on today. The solution is being also offered to various corporate employee like Microsoft Hyderabad and Qualcomm Hyderabad. The solution is being accessed by 22 states of India and its growing exponentially. The solution also show case the vulnerable areas on a GIS map , These areas are shown based on the number of alerts received from those locations. Such visibility not helps the police department to align their patrolling and beat operations accordingly. But also help the end users to be cautious when they pass through such areas.
Value proposition: FightBack, the women’s safety application, sends SOS alerts from user’s mobile phone. FightBack uses GPS, SMS, location maps, GPRS, email and Facebook account of the user to inform their loved ones in case of any danger.
• one unique feature which helps the user to trigger the app by just shaking the phone.User doesn’t need to unlock the phone or browse through the app to launch it. He can just make a air circle through the phone or shake it vigorously the application will automatically be launched.
Characteristics/uniqueness:
• Fight back is an app which provides a client/server based solution.
• It is an end to end solution which gets integrated with police control room eventually. It’s not only a mobile application, but it also gives sever solution where user can monitor the location of the mobile phone live on a server.
• The alerts are popup are pushed by the server not by the customer’s mobile phones. So it’s very cost effective to the end user.
• Even if the mobile phone is snatched or broken by the criminal, the server would still be sending alerts and showing location of the user.
• The solution also captures all these locations based alert and generate an GIS report to show case the vulnerable areas to the user and police deptt.
• The GIS reports are used by police department to plan their patrolling and beat activities in these vulnerable areas. This not only enhances the visibility to the police department but also increase the efficiency of resource deployment.
• This is a solution which is being integrated with police control room to offer end to end security solution to the common public.
Learning from the Project:
• FightBack is a CSR Initiative of TechMahindra, Earlier there was a business plan associated to it but after the recent Delhi incidents, and increasing criminal activities against women it has been decided to offer this app to everyone at no cost.
• TechMahindra is completely funding this operation and they ensure that the services are running all the time with the frequent upgrades and quality checks.
• There are regular sessions and workshops in Universities and Companies by the senior management people to create awareness and promoting this app to various segments.
• Security is a very important factor in everybody’s life and the app intends to reach to every person everywhere to make him aware about this app.
The application is also evolving with many more inputs and new features which will definitely make a sustainable tool for human kind.
Challenges/ Limitations: Few limitations are as below.
•The solution requires 24X7 servers to be running all the time.
•The location accuracy depends on GPS quality of the phone.
• Phone can be tracked only till the battery is up and its intact, If its broken or battery is drained then the solution won’t help.
•The solution is not available on feature phones; it works only on smart phones.
Account of the beneficiary:
1. “This is an excellent tool and it really helps a lot to increase the confidence of a girl when she is travelling alone.” Dr. Kiran Bedi. (During Workshop with Child Association India at Amity University).
2. “I use this application and it works perfectly fine, I really like this and feel confident after using it” Nehal Gupta, Student, Amity University.
3. “I get this app installed on my daughter’s mobile and it reduces my worry when she is late” Sushim Srivastava, Qualcom, Hyd.
4. “My wife is using this app on her mobile, Its great app” , Ayan Banerjee, Microsoft, Hyd.
5. “This is an excellent initiative, such application is the need of today’s world, I congratulate the app developers.” Praveen Kumar, SP, Noida Police
Project/Organization URL: https://www.fightbackmobile.com/
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