Kimberly Bryant by Kathryn Hulick

Author:Kathryn Hulick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

Ohana

During the IGNITE International Girls Hackathon event in February 2015, the Global Fund for Women challenged coders to design websites or mobile apps that would help increase girls’ access to safe spaces in their communities. Teams participated from all over the world, including the United States, Taiwan, India, and Brazil. A Black Girls Code team out of Oakland, California, entered the competition. Kimberly Bryant’s daughter, Kai, was on the team, along with Sasha Williams and three other girls. The called their app Ohana, a Hawaiian word that was popularized by the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch, which includes the line, “Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.”

The Ohana app prompts a user to set up contacts and compose messages to be sent in case of emergency. The user can update her status to either green for safe, orange for unsure or upset, or red for danger. In case she doesn’t have access to her phone in an emergency, she can place a tiny sensor onto a piece of jewelry or a zipper. When she holds down the sensor for five seconds, the app automatically changes the status to red and sends an alert to the police and the emergency contacts. The app uses GPS tracking to send the user’s location as well. The designers hope that the app will help prevent sexual harassment, domestic violence, and abductions.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.