An Indian start-up has won a $1 million prize for a tiny device that promotes women’s safety.
A watch-like device which alerts the user's family when pressed was devised by Delhi based Leaf Wearables, a company that creates smart jewellery products that double up as safety devices.
One of its products, the SAFER Pro won the Women’s Safety Xprize award at the ceremony held at the United Nations in New York this month.
Anu and Navin Jain announced the XPRIZE of a million US dollars for producing a device for the safety of women particularly from sexual assaults.
They received thousands of submissions from around the world and after several judging rounds the XPRIZE was awarded to the Delhi based team of Leaf Wearables.
Paras Batra, the co-founder of the company told SBS Hindi, “We wished to make the world a safer place for women and the Women’s Safety XPRIZE gave us an incentive to focus on developing a simple device for women.”
Quoting Anu Jain, Paras said, “Safety is a fundamental right and shouldn’t be considered a luxury for women. It is the foundation in achieving gender equality.”
The Jains were of the opinion that when technology is being used for every sphere in life, someone should also spare a thought for the safety of women and produce a device that can trigger an emergency alert to the victim’s family or friends.
The winning team of 12 members was led by Manik Mehta, who is currently in New York. Paras says each team member is an expert in some field of technology.
“The judging was pretty tough, the first stage was an online judging round and in the second round judging teams from all over the world came to Mumbai, our product was thoroughly tested with simulated situations in a running bus and train," he says.
Source: Supplied
What is the device?
The makers claim the device made to ensure women's safety is like something out of a Bond movie.
Paras says, “We produced a watch which contained it’s own GPS and sim card. It looks like any normal watch, but it has a button on the side which when long pressed alerts the victim’s family. The family will receive an SMS, notification, and location of the woman in trouble and once the button is pressed an audio recording starts automatically.”
