SafeTrace

Inspiration SafeTrace was born out of a devastating personal experience. A close friend survived a sexual assault but was left entirely in the dark, paralyzed by trauma and unable to navigate the complex, slow-moving legal system to report it. Because of these systemic delays, the perpetrator went on to harm another student at the school. Seeing how the traditional justice process fails victims when they are at their most vulnerable made it clear that we needed to build a solution. We had to create a shield to prevent further harm and a tool to give survivors their power back.

What it does SafeTrace is a comprehensive mental health wellness and safety platform built specifically for survivors of assault and trauma. It operates on three core pillars:

Prevention: An instant emergency SOS feature allows users in immediate danger to alert nearby community members and authorities for rapid assistance.

Justice: An empathetic, AI-driven assistant helps survivors document their experiences while in shock, seamlessly structuring the fragmented details into a legally viable report to send to the proper authorities.

Healing: A secure sanctuary that connects users with professional counselors and a private, verified community where survivors can share their journeys safely.

How we built it We leaned heavily into modern AI-assisted development, adopting a fast-paced "vibe coding" methodology to bring this platform to life rapidly. By leveraging advanced large language models and specialized AI tools, we designed an empathetic conversational interface capable of handling highly sensitive narratives. The backend uses secure text-processing pipelines to structure data into organized incident reports, while the frontend integrates real-time location services to handle the emergency SOS architecture.

Challenges we ran into The biggest hurdle was designing an AI prompt framework that could handle trauma responsibly. We had to ensure the AI maintained an incredibly supportive, non-triggering tone while still extracting the precise details required for authoritative reporting. Additionally, balancing absolute user anonymity with the location data needed for the localized SOS feature required careful architectural planning around data privacy and encryption.

Accomplishments that we're proud of We are incredibly proud of building a functional bridge between crisis response and long-term recovery. Crafting an AI workflow that transforms raw, emotional trauma data into structured, actionable intelligence for authorities without re-traumatizing the user is a massive milestone for us. We have built something that feels like a genuine safe space rather than a cold, bureaucratic form.

What we learned We learned that technology must lead with empathy when dealing with human crises. Building SafeTrace taught us deep lessons about the severe gaps in current emergency response times and the legal barriers survivors face. We also discovered just how powerful AI can be when used as a collaborative development partner, allowing us to build a complex, high-stakes platform in a fraction of the usual time.

What's next for SafeTrace Our immediate focus is partnering with local universities, support networks, and legal advocacy NGOs to roll out SafeTrace where it is needed most. We plan to refine our emergency location logic to make the SOS feature even faster and expand our network of professional counselors. Ultimately, we want SafeTrace to become a global standard for survivor protection, legal empowerment, and communal healing.

Built With

• claude
• supabase
• vercel