Crowdguard

The world of today is filled with manifold opportunities. Especially emerging economies with a large proportion of young citizens are being transformed at a rapid pace. Yet some citizens consciously choose not to participate in these opportunities, as they perceive a mismatch between possible rewards and the risk involved in frequenting public spaces. The recent reports of rapes on females in India are exemplary of these risks. Police might be available, but the public security services lag far behind what citizens are accustomed to in developed societies of the West. This problem is partly due to inadequate salaries, equipment or infrastructure. It is partly due to cultural conceptions of gender roles – leading to further victimisation of victims of violence.

Crowdguard aims to build and introduce a crowd-based rescue and assistance service as a complementary security layer to official security forces. Exploiting the heightened frustration and personal ambitions for change, people will sign up for the rescue and security service just to show their support for human safety and thereby catalysing a new sense of civic responsibility.

The project's innovative aspects are three-fold: it is based on an anonymous geo-based social graph, which sets it apart from the majority of people-based social graphs. It incorporates incentive mechanisms to instil trust in the rescue community. It is based on mobile phones which are widely available in every region of the world.

Contact person: Philip Urech, Email