Australian app WanderSafe has just teamed up with fellow safety app What3Words to further revolutionise the way we travel in potentially dangerous situations, according to 10 Daily.
WanderSafe, which was developed by Aussie Stephenie Rodriguez, is an app that is designed to help women (and other people) feel safer when travelling alone or being in unfamiliar areas. The app works by sending alerts and pinpoint locations to elected loved ones if you feel unsafe or in danger, effectively making people feel less vulnerable when walking alone.
The app is not just for women, but also for all kinds of people who may feel vulnerable in society such as “LGBT, the elderly, kids, visibly religious people in an environment where they may not be welcome”.
But with the help of What3Words, the app will be able to give an exact 3m by 3m square to locate the person, as well as the standard Google Maps link. If you’ve ever tried to use the Find My iPhone service, you’d know that the location services aren’t always accurate, so this if potentially game changing. Latitude and longitude is traditionally used to map locations, but What3Words has upped the ante with a much more precise method of tracking. The What3Words software has split the world up into 57 trillion squares and can narrow your location down to a single square, because yes, the world is fucking huge.
“Our idea is simple, but its lifesaving potential is huge,” What3Words chief marketing officer Gyles Rhys Jones said. “If you are in an emergency situation and are unable to describe where you are, it can add even more distress to an already scary situation.
The software will now send your loved ones a text message with a Google Maps link and your What3Words location, thus making it way easier for search parties to find you when the SOS alarm is activated.
As a woman who often walks home from work alone in the dark, it’s unsurprising that a recent Mission Australia study showed that half of Australian women feel unsafe when doing so. With the help of this app, you can at least feel like you have some form of defence in a dangerous situation.
“With so many mindless shootings taking place around the world and women not feeling safe with things like pepper-spray and tasers, I set out to design a holistic solution, not just a band-aid on social issues that are uncomfortable for women to talk about,” Rodriguez told 10 Daily.
Since its launch in October 2018, WanderSafe has been downloaded countless times, with 800 users activating the SOS alarm feature at some point. But this is just the beginning, because Rodriguez wants to take the software global in future. By 2025, she hopes that one billion people will have the software downloaded, which would be completely game-changing for the safety of society’s most vulnerable people, including victims of human trafficking.
“It’s great for travellers, commuters, and even victims of human trafficking, who may not know their exact location in a developing country where Google Maps data is inadequate.”
Whether you’re using WanderSafe, or one of the many other apps on the market with similar missions, I recommend having some sort of safety app on your phone at all times. You never know when something bad could happen.
