During the week of Oct 5th through 11th safety and security group has further developed the idea for the proposal – to be specific we have discussed use cases, costs and benefits of introducing an alert system in the city of Vizag. Similarly to AMBER Alert, that has been used in the U.S., we want to design an alert system that would notify the city via mobile devices and social media about incoming threats. – Whether it is child abduction, approaching cyclone or crime warnings, alert can be a fast, efficient and inexpensive way to inform the citizens and send instructions when urgent course of action needs to be taken.
In our class on Thursday we heard a story from our guest speaker Brad Buss, CFO at Solar City. While bringing solar energy to India has been a big win for the company, he admitted that scaling the project has been a financial challenge for the government. Our group understands the limitations and is eager to address the costs side of our alert solution.
Additionally, we have initiated a phone call with Raghu Pokala, Founder & CEO of Encore India who was kind to share some demographic and economic insights regarding urban areas of Vizag and Hyderabad. While we took away from our call that Vizag is a relatively safe city, Raghu suggested that an application that can help reporting crime can better security in the city. We also think that his comments can be a help to the other projects and have shared our notes with the class.
The Safety and Security Group
Ted Xiao, Russell Nibbelink, Kaitlen Nguyen, Alex Feibleman, Dzmitry Yahorau
Excellent