Hi, First, my apologies if this isn’t the appropriate place to send an email like this. If there’s a more appropriate place for me to send mail, please let me know.
I am a programmer working on a free software project called Buoy that attempts to provide a community-driven emergency dispatch infrastructure, separate from 9-1-1 or other State-sponsored emergency response services. As we say on the project’s homepage:[0] > Buoy is designed to connect people in crisis with trusted friends, family, > and other nearby allies who can help. We believe that in situations where > traditional emergency services are not available, reliable, trustworthy, or > sufficient, communities can come together to aid each other in times of need. One way to think of the tool is like a community-based replacement for 9-1-1 where instead of "calling the cops,” community members call upon each other when they need to. We currently have a working implementation of the tool as an HTML5 mobile-first web-app deployable as an easy-to-install WordPress plugin, and are in the process of testing the app with numerous community support organizations (shelters, activist collectives, etc.). Might such a tool be an appropriate place for our team and the Guardian Project’s team to collaborate? Specifically, we lack expertise in Android app development but have a lot of experience building web services and mobile-friendly web apps. Our hope is to provide both a secure web-based infrastructure sufficient for autonomous communities to access and use a peer(-to-peer)-based emergency dispatch service and also a native app that interacts with those web services for added functionality. We are already aware of numerous Guardian Project apps and plan to integrate with them (notably Orbot, CameraV, and Ripple for starters).[1] A recent blog post about the Buoy community-driven emergency dispatch tool, which shows screen shots and describes a basic user experience walk-through, is published here: https://maymay.net/blog/2015/11/25/a-sneak-peek-at-better-angels-buoy-the-private-enhanced-9-1-1-for-your-personal-community/ A notable excerpt from the blog post: > We’ve designed Buoy with people for whom “calling the cops” is not possible > or safe, such as: > > • Undocumented immigrant and homeless populations. > • Domestic violence victims and survivors. > • Social justice and social change activists/political dissidents. > • Freed prisoners. > • Frequent targets of assault and street harassment (trans/queer > people, women). > • People suffering from a medical or mental health emergency. > • Especially all the intersections of the above (homeless feminine > queer youth of color, for instance). > > In other words, these are all demographics who could benefit by having > “someone to call” in the event of an emergency for whom “the police” is > obviously a counterproductive answer, because when police are involved they > are more likely to escalate the situation than de-escalate it. If you or anyone you know is interested in this project, or has any technical questions, please email me directly (don’t just post to this listserve) to let me know. My PGP key ID is 4DB88B59 and my public key is available for download from the footer in my homepage at https://maymay.net. Thanks for your time and your continued work! Cheers, -maymay About me: https://maymay.net EXTERNAL REFERENCES: [0] https://github.com/meitar/better-angels [1] https://github.com/meitar/better-angels/issues/71
signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
_______________________________________________ List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/guardian-dev To unsubscribe, email: [email protected]
