Shout Out

App to send emergency alerts. Especially for Women's and kids.

The recent rape and death of a young female student in Delhi on December 16, sparked a search for technological innovations that could be used by women to alert authorities of a threat to their safety. While Indian tech firms began working on and released several apps for women’s safety, Goan IT developers followed close on their heels and released an app of their own.

Shout Out is an app developed in Goa by Genora Infotech, Verna that not only sends an emergency message to five chosen contacts with the push of a button, but even makes a phone call to a pre-defined number, all at one go! The app was launched on March 8, International Women’s Day, the theme of which was, ‘Time for action to end violence against women’. Along with the voice call and text messages, the app also sends out GPS co-ordinates (latitude-longitude) of your location. The receiver will be given your location on the ever-handy Google maps.

A woman cannot be accompanied by a man or someone she trusts all the time to take care of her safety. So yes, why not. If it makes me feel safe that I can go out and get on with my life, without being worried about my safe-being, I would definitely use apps like these,” says Pearl D’Sa who is quite the party animal and loves going out late-nights with friends. “It’s a very sensible option, because every woman carries a mobile phone with her everywhere,” she adds.

Apart from the primary number, the app allows you to call a secondary number as well. The apps interface also allows you to contact emergency services such as police, ambulance and fire services, again at the push of a button. Shout-Out is available for download free of cost on the android platform. The idea is to let friends, family or police find those in trouble and save them.