A mobile app that lets users send a geolocated distress alert without the abuser noticing was the winning idea in the first Technology Ideas for Gender Equality competition organized by the School of Telecommunications Engineering at UPCT.
The idea for the app, called Puertas Violetas, was developed by Free Open Source Club UPCT and presented by Cristian Gutiérrez López, a Telecommunications Systems student. It was rated highest among the proposals submitted to the competition that the Polytechnic University of Cartagena organized for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The app builds on tools that are already available on smartphones. According to the student, it would allow “anyone experiencing an episode of gender violence, with the push of a button, to send a predefined help message to a trusted person while also sending their location, placing a call to 016, and activating the microphone so the recording can later be used as evidence.” He also stressed that the whole process would happen with the screen blacked out so the aggressor would not notice it.
The second prize went to IgualdAPP, a proposal created by the Tech Club de la UPCT and presented by María Ángeles Fontcuberta Zornoza. Its goal is to publicize activities related to diversity and equality and to offer students an anonymous way to ask for help with inequality or exclusion problems within the university.
The third prize went to the idea Virtual reality: women and telecommunications, by student Marta Martínez Molina, designed to present the contribution of women to the development of telecommunications in an interactive way.
Finally, the Young Promises award went to the 6th grade class at the Murcia school Francisco Giner de los Ríos, whose teacher is María Medina Marín, for their ideas to promote equality and fight gender violence.
All the prizes in this competition, which aims to encourage technological ideas and concepts in telecommunications engineering that can help prevent and combat violence against women while also promoting gender equality, will be used to purchase scientific and educational equipment.
Source: La Verdad