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Inspiration
The idea for SafePak started when I watched a video of a foreign visitor in Pakistan being overcharged by a taxi driver.
What frustrated me was not only the incident itself, but the fact that the visitor simply did not know how things worked locally. They did not know which services to use, how local prices worked, where to find reliable information, or how to communicate easily.
I kept thinking: why should a visitor have to figure all of this out on their own?
That became the starting point for SafePak.
I wanted to build something that could act like a local friend in your pocket, helping foreign visitors understand Pakistan, stay safer, communicate with people, and access the services they need.
What it does
SafePak is a Pakistan Visitor Safety & Navigation Platform designed to make Pakistan easier and safer for foreign visitors to navigate.
It brings practical information and tools together in one place, including:
- Emergency and safety information
- Local price guidance
- Multilingual translation
- Useful local services and applications
- City-based information
- An AI chatbot powered by the Groq API
- User authentication and verification
The larger goal is not simply to build another tourism website.
We want SafePak to become a trusted bridge between foreign visitors and Pakistan's services, institutions, and people.
How we built it
SafePak was built by me as its founder using:
- PHP
- Supabase
- Hostinger
- Groq API for the AI chatbot
- Firebase for login and verification
The platform is designed around the practical problems a visitor faces when arriving in an unfamiliar country.
Challenges we ran into
One of the biggest challenges was turning a broad real-world problem into something that could actually be useful.
There is a huge amount of information that a foreign visitor might need, but simply putting more information online does not solve the problem. It needs to be organized in a way that makes sense to someone who does not know Pakistan.
Another challenge was building the project as a real working platform rather than just a concept. I had to work across the application, backend services, hosting, authentication, and AI integration.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The biggest accomplishment for me is that I did not stop at identifying the problem. I built a solution for it.
SafePak started from a simple frustration after seeing a visitor get overcharged, and turned into a functioning platform with authentication, backend infrastructure, hosting, and an AI chatbot.
I am also proud that SafePak is being developed as a non-profit initiative.
There is a potential business opportunity here, but my priority is solving the problem and creating something genuinely useful for people visiting Pakistan.
What we learned
Building SafePak taught me that solving a real-world problem is very different from simply building a technical project.
Technology is only one part of the solution. The bigger challenge is understanding what people actually need, making information accessible, and building something that people can trust.
It also taught me to think beyond a single feature or application and think about how technology can connect people with existing services and institutions.
What's next for SafePak (Pakistan Visitor Safety & Navigation Platform)
SafePak is bigger than this hackathon.
Our three-year goal is for SafePak to become the single trusted bridge between foreign visitors and Pakistan's services, institutions, and people.
The next step is to expand the platform, improve and verify its information, cover more cities, build stronger partnerships, and collaborate with relevant organizations and institutions.
If SafePak wins funding through this hackathon, I intend to put the prize money directly back into the project to improve the platform and help us move from a working project toward a larger, sustainable initiative.
Beyond funding, I am looking for something equally valuable: connections and collaboration.
I want to use the opportunity created by this hackathon to connect with judges, mentors, organizations, and other builders who can help SafePak grow. The goal is to establish collaborations, gain expertise, validate the platform with real stakeholders, and eventually expand SafePak's reach across Pakistan.
This hackathon is therefore not just a competition for us.
It is an opportunity to take SafePak from an idea built around a problem I witnessed into a platform capable of solving that problem at scale.
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