THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: While the state battles landslides and flood for the second consecutive year, an app, 'Qkopy', is being used by the City Traffic Police for flood relief by providing instant alerts about dangerous as well as safe routes. Qkopy, a social communication startup based in Kozhikode and incubated under Kerala Startup Misson at UL CyberPark, works as a contact-based mobile app for communication, broadcasting and propagating updates through a valid mobile number to people in a more targeted and discoverable way. The application was used by the Kozhikode City Traffic Police during last year's flood.
The app is available on both Android and iOS. Traffic police in Thiruvananthapuram city are also using the app to spread awareness and issue directions. "We have been using Qkopy for the past eight months to communicate with the public and we have found it to be very useful. Not just for flood relief activity, it has been helping us to communicate with people during traffic diversions," said Jayasankar S, a Civil Police Officer in the city.
Co-founded by entrepreneurs Arun Perooli, Rajiv Surendran and Rahul K C, Qkopy was the only social communication platform used by the Kozhikode district administration to fight fake messages spreading through WhatsApp and other social media platforms during the outbreak of Nipah. The district health authorities found Qkopy as an amicable solution for propagating awareness and directions to people in the Nipah virus-affected areas in the district.
Today, Qkopy
is used by government and non-government organisations for propagating authentic information from a credible source in and around the area they serve. "It is being used by about 4,000 people and we have been able to connect with Kochi, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram City Traffic Police and the Disaster
Management Authority. People who have saved the official alert number receive instant alerts," said Rajiv Surendran, co-founder of Qkopy.