A Rotorua based software company has developed an app to send out a distress signal and emergency messages to their contacts when in danger.
‘Please Help!’ is an app specially designed for retail stores such as dairy stores, liquor stores, petrol pumps, restaurants and takeaways and individuals to alert their nominated emergency contacts that they are in danger.
With the rise in aggravated robberies and assaults in New Zealand in the last few months, the app will come handy for the people facing such dangers and when in distress.
The app was developed by Edutech in two weeks time and tested for one week. Paramdip Singh, the owner of the company, witnessed one of his students injured by an assault a few months ago and conceived the idea to develop the app.
“I saw my friend’s liquor store robbed in Rotorua and the attendant the offender hit was my student, who suffered a grievous injury to his head,” owner of Edutech Paramdip Singh said.
“I thought we could use the technology to our advantage and make an app for the person in danger to alert his neighbours and friends. It is not just the shop owners, but also students that are at risk and this app could help them,” Mr Singh added.
The app is currently available on Android and can be downloaded from Google Play Store.
The layout of the app is simple with six icons that give basic services such as send alert message, voice recording, customise help message, alarm tones and view recordings that can be used as a proof to give it to the police. A person can nominate up to 30 contacts in their emergency list to send the alert.
How does the app work?
• Click the ‘Live Mode ON’ in the app. A floating icon like a ‘panic button’ comes on the screen.
• When in distress click the floating ‘Please Help’ icon, and it sends the alert to people in the contact list
Additional Features:
• If voice recording is selected, then it also starts recording the voice along with text message alerts
• The alert also gives live GPS location of the person in distress
• The thumb rule is that if the person is within 10 minutes of the alarmed location, they should try to reach there to help them
• If the person alerted also has the ‘Please Help’ app installed, it will raise a siren on their phone
• The company has also created stickers so retailers can display that they are protected by this technology.
The app was launched in Rotorua on Tuesday, July 11 and on Thursday, July 13 the app was launched in Auckland at Newton College of Business and Technology in the CBD. It was launched in association with Crime Prevention Group (CPG), the newly formed community group against increasing nuisance of aggravated robberies.
Lead organiser of Crime Prevention Group Sunny Kaushal, National List MP Kanwaljit Bakshi launched the app at the event. About 70 attendees including local retail shop owners, community leaders and members installed the app and became its very first users and testers.
Some 150 ‘Please Help’ stickers have been distributed in Rotorua and 400 in Auckland to be placed in front of their local retail stores. The iOS version of the app is being developed, and the app will be updated soon with new features.
"We pray nothing should happen to anybody and that nothing goes wrong but we just never know. Prevention is better than crime," Mr Singh said.
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