Introduction
Fear of immigrants is spreading across Europe. Reports of sexual assault and rape are flooding into police offices. Those calling for an end to Chancellor Merkel's open-door policy toward Syrian immigrants are exploiting police descriptions of the perpetrators, which describe the majority of the alleged perpetrators as being of "Arab or North African origin," even as authorities warned they don't know if any of the culprits are refugees.
- We need a solution that is more comprehensive and much quicker than police reaction.
- Technology is right at our finger tips and we need to utilize it to help protect the people in Germany and catch any perpetrators.
Who we are
My name is David Brown. I am an Officer in the US Army and have dealt with the Army's Sexual Harassment/Assault Response Program (SHARP) for a few years and see that there are significant issues with it. My goal with this app is to help deter the possibility of sexual assaults and rapes. What I have noticed is that people are more likely to do the right thing when they know:
- They are being recorded
- They aren't alone
- There is a possibility that others will find out
If you don't believe me, then start talking to someone and then tell them that you are going to record what they are saying...
So what I have done is designed an app that will give much more transparency to these situations and will help people respond to calls for help much faster than ever before. In the end, I'm hoping to help adjust people's behavior.
Our Solution
We've been working on a solution for over a year and now is the time to launch the solution. We will have a tech team on standby to help adapt the app quickly to the needs of the people in Germany considering that New Years just passed and the next big celebration, Fasching, is just around the corner. Here's our solution:
App Functions
Based on our experiences with sexual assault and rape, we have come up with the following core features for the app:
- There are two groups that will be notified in case of an emergency, your own person contacts that you identify, and the group of users, who have volunteered as active bystanders.
What we need to complete the project
- Android App - We already have the Android app designed. We need to inject some code into it so that it works perfectly with our backend server to move data and store it correctly.
- iOS App - We have to do the same thing with the iOS app.
- Backend Database - Jordan, our programmer, is redesigning the database. It needs a lot of work since the first developer didn't build it well. Jordan has a Graduate degree in Computer Science and Robotics... He's much better suited for the task ^_^
Social Impact
This app will help end the discussions about sexual assault, rape, and false allegations. It will help victims get help immediately and will lead to more CORRECT prosecutions in the end so that we don't have our tax dollars paying to hold innocent people behind bars.
Summary
- I've already spent $7,000 on this project. Building apps is not an easy, nor a cheap process.
- $5000 is going to go to analysing and designing the user interface for the apps to ensure that the apps are intuitive. We want to make sure that it is easy to understand and helps these women in Germany get help immediately.
- If we can reach the $10,000 limit, then the extra $5,000 will be used for implementing future features that will help account for other types of situation where rapes happen eg. date rape.
- Anything over $10,000 will be used for the Twilio and Parse database storage fees, which will quickly rack up if a lot of users start using the app.
How you can help us
If you are interested in helping with our project, please spread the word about us on:
- Facebook (you can like our group at WithU (you must be logged in order to see the page)**
- and any other social media website.
**You'll see the image below, if you aren't logged in.
If you would like to personally contribute your programming services, please send an email to: [email protected]
