The recent Uber-Delhi rape case has brought the issue of women safety back into the public domain. It has also made travelling in the night for women tougher and scarier. But, all is not lost yet; there is an app in town which is adamant to win back the lost trust and security of the daily commuters. The app is called FrndiNeed and it has repackaged itself after the recent Uber case. It is here to fix the damage done by Uber.
FrndiNeed is a socially enabled application, which makes use of the user’s geographic location and connects him/her with friends in the vicinity and then requests them for a lift. The app is a variant of all those hundreds of apps available in the market that poke friends for instant meet-ups. It also comes with an SOS(Save our Souls)tab for emergency.
The app is a multipurpose app that makes everyday travel safer, smoother and economically viable. The app allows to poke a friend and request him/her to accept a request for a weekend trip. It even allows the user to plan a carpool. This feature is currently not available in beta.
According to Kunal Kishore, the co-founder of the app, the application was initially meant to help friends within 2-5 km radius to catch up with each other. But, when they developed the app in August, the company thought of incorporating women’s security also.
More and more applications are coming in the market which are not just looking to help the women at the times of crisis but also preventing such crisis situations altogether. An example of this is Socialcops, an app that collects data from authorities and civilians in order to find the fastest and safest routes for users. The app even tells the police the areas and routes which need urgent attention.
According to Jasmeen Patheja, founder of the Blank Noise Project, such apps should be part of a larger system connecting the woman with neighborhood, the police and family, and not something that creates panic. Jasmeen said this in a statement to Economic Times.
The police is also making changes to its app in order to connect women in trouble directly to the police. The ‘DCP SahAya’ app will now incorporate a facility that will alert the police control room or the local police station directly. The app was launched six months ago.
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