New Delhi-based Leaf Wearables recently won a million dollar prize for developing a women's safety device. Their team developed a wearable smart device women can use to send out emergency alerts if threatened or assaulted. The contest was instituted by Indian-American philanthropists Anu & Naveen Jain called 'Women's Safety XPRIZE'.
About XPRIZE
Anu and Naveen Jain collaborated with a non-profit organisation, XPRIZE, to organise the contest. It aimed at harnessing technology for women safety-related problems and finding solutions.
Eighty-five teams from 18 countries were selected for the million dollar prize. Out of them, five made it to the finale. In the end, a group of entrepreneurs, Leaf Wearables, won the prize
Device without internet
The participating teams were required to create a safety device for women. It needed to operate without internet, costing no more than USD 40. According to the rules, the device must be able to send an emergency alert if a woman is facing a threat. It should transmit information to a network of community responders within 90 seconds.
With the competition, the Jains looked forward to finding solutions from the public itself, rather than consulting 'experts'. "The mindset that perpetuates violence and discrimination against women and girls needs to change but we cannot wait for that to happen. Our goal is to do something today, use technology to find solutions fast. We wear technology everyday, we are counting our every footstep through technology. Let's use that technology and innovation to provide safety for women and girls around the world," Anu Jain said, mentioned by TOI.
About Leaf Wearables
Leaf Wearables is a technology start-up, founded by students of IIT Delhi and Delhi Technological University. They won the prize for their project named 'Safer Pro'. They also worked on similar projects before. Manik Mehta, Niharika Rajiv and Avinash Bansal are its team members who worked on the device.
"It was in 2012 that the Nirbhaya rape took place in Delhi," Manik Mehta told TOI, adding that it was then that they decided "enough is enough. Delhi is unsafe and things are not changing at all. We have got to solve this problem". Their device can not only send emergency alerts, but is also capable of recording audios. Thus, it would enable women in giving valuable proof and evidence.
Safety is a global concern
"Women safety is a global problem, it's a global epidemic. A safe environment for women is a fundamental human right, it should not be considered a luxury and yet in today's world, with so much advancement in technology and innovation, we still haven not been able to solve this problem," Anu Jain, founder of the Women's Safety XPRIZE, told PTI at the awards ceremony organised at the UN.
Picture Credit: BFA.com
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