A discreet piece of smart jewelry that sends an alert to loved ones and tracks her location when a woman feels in danger has taken out the US$1 million XPrize for Women's Safety, the foundation has announced today.
Launched in 2016, the Anu & Naveen Jain Women's Safety XPrize was a global competition that asked teams to come up with a device that automatically and discreetly triggers alerts when a woman believes she's in danger. Among the criteria was a need for the alert to be received within 90 seconds of being triggered, and the device must cost less than US$40 a year for the user.
The team at India's Leaf Wearables responded to this with a small chip called Safer Pro that pairs with the user's smartphone over Bluetooth. The team has demonstrated it in pieces of jewelry and sold tens of thousands of units in India already, but says that the chip could be built into any kind of device.
The chip comes equipped with an emergency alert button, and when pressed twice by the user a notification is sent to predetermined contacts, along with the user's location.
It can also offer navigation to the nearest hospitals and police stations, and constantly share the user's live location while they walk as a precautionary measure. The device can be fully charged via Micro USB in 15 minutes, with each full charge offering seven days of normal usage.
"Safety is a fundamental human right and shouldn't be considered a luxury for women," said Anu Jain, philanthropist and founder of the Women's Safety XPrize. "It is the foundation in achieving gender equality. With so many advances in innovation and technology today, it was unacceptable to us that we didn't have a solution to help curb this sexual assault pandemic. We congratulate the winning team and thank all the teams that poured their heart and soul into finding innovative solutions to move humanity forward."
Safer Pro is available now for INR$1,899 (US$28.50), and you can check out the promo video below.
Source: Leaf Wearables via XPrize