Specchio

Inspiration

Every navigation app answers one question: what's the fastest way? For a woman walking alone at night, that's the wrong question. The right one is what's the safest way, and why? Renaissance cartographers mapped the world so travellers could make it home safely. Leonardo da Vinci himself drew one of the most precise maps of his age. Specchio ("mirror" in Italian, after Leonardo's mirror writing) brings that idea to the modern city: like a mirror, it shows you what you can't see on your own.

This project builds on our earlier prototype SAKHI, with organizer approval. During Renaissance Buildathon we rebranded it as Specchio and redesigned the whole experience around the Renaissance theme.

What it does

Safe walking routes: gets walking routes (OpenStreetMap / OSRM) and splits them into journey segments.
A contextual safety score: each segment gets a 0–100 risk score with a separate confidence value. This is a contextual estimate, not a crime prediction or a guarantee of safety.
Explainable AI: SHAP explanations show why a street scored the way it did. In Specchio these appear as "Cartographer's Notes".
Three ways home: The Safe Passage (safest), The Middle Way (balanced) and The Swift Road (fastest), ranked by a weighted cost over time, risk and uncertainty.
Dynamic rerouting: when a new safety report comes in, routes are recalculated.
A Renaissance interface: a parchment-and-ink design, a sepia map, gold "illuminated" safe routes and sienna risk segments, so the app feels like a hand-drawn cartographer's map.

How we built it

Backend: Python, FastAPI, Uvicorn and pytest.
ML: an XGBoost regressor (trained on synthetic data for Delhi's Connaught Place area) with a heuristic fallback, and SHAP for explainability.
Mobile: React Native with Expo, and a Leaflet map with MapTiler tiles.
Data and auth: Supabase.
Today's work: the full Specchio rebrand and Renaissance redesign: a theme system, IM Fell English / EB Garamond / Caveat typography, the sepia map styling, the route and explanation redesign, and a recolor of every screen.

Challenges we ran into

Turning a modern map into a "Renaissance map" without hurting readability. We used CSS filters on the map tiles and kept the high-risk segments high-contrast.
Restyling 18+ screens consistently in a few hours. We built one theme and a color-mapping system, instead of editing hundreds of colors by hand.
Keeping safety-critical information clear inside a decorative design.

What we learned

Explainability matters as much as accuracy: a woman deciding which street to take needs to know why, not just a number. We also learned how much a strong visual identity changes how a product feels.

What's next

Real (non-synthetic) safety data, with community verification
Expansion beyond Connaught Place
A night travel advisor comparing walking, metro, bus, auto and cab safety by time of day
A working SOS and offline mode, which are UI demos in this prototype