FemAlert

Inspiration

The inspiration for FemAlert comes from a deeply personal and painful experience. A close friend of mine was assaulted by her boyfriend. She was left with a fractured skull and barely able to see. When she begged him to call for help, he refused. In her desperation, she had to call her mother to rescue her from the dangerous situation, bloodied and on the brink of death. I realized that if my friend had a tool to alert someone that she was in danger, she might have been saved.

This harrowing experience motivated me to create an application that could help women in vulnerable situations — allowing them to send emergency messages to trusted contacts when they fear they might be in danger. My goal was to build something that could make a real difference, especially for women who feel trapped in toxic or abusive environments.

What it does

FemAlert is a discreet emergency tool designed to help women in dangerous situations. It’s disguised as a simple shopping list app, which acts as a decoy to prevent any suspicion. The reason for this disguise is to protect women who may be in toxic home environments, where their significant other or abuser might monitor their phone usage. If the abuser finds a safety app, they may force the woman to uninstall it or worse, escalate the violence.

Once activated, the app allows the user to send an emergency WhatsApp message with their location to a pre-set contact. Additionally, it connects users to women's rights organizations in their area and offers a chatbot powered by OpenAI, which can provide immediate emotional support, guidance, and important information. The app prioritizes privacy and discreetness, ensuring that help is only a tap away, even in the most difficult situations.

How we built it

We built FemAlert using the low-code platform OutSystems, which enabled us to rapidly prototype and develop the app with ease. For the messaging system, we integrated WhatsApp, which allows users to send pre-set messages to trusted contacts with their real-time location. For the emotional support and informational side of the app, we integrated OpenAI to create a chatbot that can converse with users, offering comfort and helpful resources. The app also connects to local women’s rights organizations, providing a network of support specific to the user's location.

Challenges we ran into

As FemAlert is not yet a registered business, we faced challenges with the WhatsApp integration. Due to this limitation, we could only send WhatsApp messages to pre-set contacts, and the app’s WhatsApp functionality cannot be fully used in a wide capacity at the moment. This constraint meant that while the app is functional, it can't send messages to random users or contacts outside the pre-set list.

Other challenges included designing a user interface that would not raise suspicion, ensuring data privacy and security for users, and integrating various APIs within the low-code environment.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Disguising a life-saving app as a basic shopping list tool, which can be used discreetly in a dangerous environment without suspicion.
• Successfully integrating WhatsApp messaging and OpenAI chatbot support to provide real-time help and emotional care.
• Building a product that can potentially save lives and empower women who find themselves in vulnerable and dangerous situations.

What we learned

• The importance of privacy and discretion when designing tech solutions for vulnerable populations.
• How to integrate third-party services (WhatsApp, OpenAI) into a low-code platform like OutSystems.
• The delicate balance between offering support and maintaining confidentiality in environments where safety is at risk.
• The real-world challenges that survivors of abuse face, and the critical need for innovative solutions that can offer discreet, immediate help.

What's next for FemAlert

• Expand WhatsApp capabilities: To overcome the current limitations on messaging and integrate a fully functional alert system that works for any contact, not just pre-set ones.
• Partnerships with NGOs: We aim to partner with more women’s rights organizations to ensure broader geographic coverage and access to more specialized resources.
• Silent Activation: We plan to add a feature that allows users to activate the alert system by shaking their phone or using a voice command, making it even less noticeable.
• Multilingual Support: To make FemAlert accessible to women in different countries and regions, we plan to integrate multiple languages into the app.
• User Feedback: Collecting feedback from users and survivors to continuously improve the app’s effectiveness and usability.

Built With

• metaapi
• openai
• outsystems