Patronus

Inspiration

As a result of personal experience and the devastating impact of street harassment we wanted to create a practical application to aid people to steer away from routes where street harassment may be more likely to happen.

What differentiates us from other apps

Other apps lack the feature to plan the fastest and safest route, but our algorithm does exactly that! We researched the shortcomings of other apps and incorporated features into Patronus that solve all of those issues.

What it does

The application which uses route optimisation based on time and distance but also includes filters which help the user stay close to main roads and 'safe places' as well as away from places where crimes have previously occurred. If on the route, the user faces any harassment, they can report the incident after they have arrived to a safe space and can ask that the report be sent to the police as well and if they are comfortable being contacted by the police about their experience.

How we built it

React with material UI framework was used for the frontend and R was used for the backend route navigation.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was route optimisation and adding costing to the shortest path by adding custom weights for locations crimes have occurred.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite none of us being proficient in back-end development, we managed to create a prototype that shows what Patronus is capable of. It was also Khushi's first time making an app :)

What we learned

None of us have worked with route optimisation algorithms and we learned about the various algorithms and how weights can be implemented. We also learned how to work in a fast-paced environment across different time zones.

What's next for Patronus

Patronus is a prototype and we hope to be able to expand the area of usage. We'd like to migrate this to the AppStore and Google Play Store and integrate other safety apps, such as Noonlight.