Are our children safe anywhere? That is one major worry no parent can ignore. The murder of second-grader Pradyuman Thakur at Ryan International School has further escalated this worry. Hoping to bring some peace of mind to parents is this husband-wife team, Gunjan and Anu Dhanuka, who are out with a solution called Safe'O'Buddy, a smartband that tracks the location of children in the school premises and on school transport. So, how does this band work? All you have to do is strap the band on your child's wrist and using the trackers installed in the school, this transmits information to the school's control room, giving the location of the child. So, in case of any suspicious activity, authorities can quickly handle the issue before the child is trapped in a hazardous situation.
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We caught up with Gunjan Dhanuka, the Co-founder and Director of Safe'O'Buddy, who explained its functioning. "These smartbands are wristbands worn by children which come fitted with an SOS button and body sensors to track kids at school. These smartbands alert the school’s control room, which receives the signal automatically from the smartband, in the case of an emergency. It will also receive an immediate alert if the band has been removed," he explains, adding that its working is independent of GPS and hence works only in those schools that are registered with the app. It also tracks the child's movements inside the school bus.
As with the introduction of any new technology, the duo faced a few difficulties, given that people are not used to any similar equipment. "Raising awareness on the safeguarding of children through apt monitoring, anytime and anywhere, required us to use a comprehensive approach with modern-age novelties. In addition, receiving acceptance from the society to understand and accept a modern way of tracking children was a challenge for us," concludes Gunjan.
