HYDERABAD: How do we make India the safest place for a woman? Finding the answer to this query has led to numerous deliberations, laws being passed, and the efforts continue. One of the ways to answer this question has been apps which provide security features for women. The state government’s Hawk Eye is one such app. ‘Life of Girl’ (LOG) is another such app which is to protect women from harassment, with a range of refreshing options that might actually work.
The primary features of this app are Instant Security and Safe Havens. The app, which is still in beta and will be launched formally early next year, aims at providing real time help to women in danger by enrolling volunteers. Anyone who downloads this free app can volunteer in a particular area and help women in distress. If a woman in that area faces any kind of harassment anywhere, she can press a button in that app which will alert all the volunteers in that area. They can then reach that place to help that woman.
At a session held at University College for Women in Koti, Vignan Joseph K, the CEO of Life of Girl app, said: “We can make India the safest place for women with everyone’s participation. Through LOG, we have created a family with the help of technology to empower girls. We have 7,000 volunteers till now. We are aiming at enrolling 3,000 more.”
Explaining the concept of Safe Havens, he added, “We are marking spaces in the city where a woman in trouble can run and seek refuge for sometime. The place might be an office, a college or some other place. That space must have three woman employees, have a functioning phone and must be near a police station. If a woman finds herself in danger, she can find the nearest Safe Haven through the app and reach that place.”
“The app was designed with the idea that a woman must find help when she needs it. Often in stories with happy endings, we see that somebody comes and rescues the woman, but that does not happen in real life always,” Vignan added. In order to make the students aware of the dangers in the virtual world, Shashank Gangari, CEO of Fedo CyberSec, spoke about cyber crimes like phishing and DoS attack. He even demonstrated how Facebook and Instagram accounts can be easily hacked and private information must be shared carefully.