ShopHer

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  ShopHer

Inspiration

A fear that is shared by women everywhere is experiencing a violent crime and feeling helpless; being unable to contact the authorities, knowing that the perpetrator is watching your every move.

Unfortunately, this was a reality for over 87,000 women in Canada in 2021. This horrifying statistic is what inspired ShopHer, an app that serves as a discrete method for victims to reach out to emergency responders.

What it does

Our team cleverly designed ShopHer to look like an online store to the unsuspecting eye. Behind the scenes, however, every phase of the online shopping process gives the dispatcher the necessary information to ensure responders are adequately equipped to rescue the victim.

The first step when using the app is to select t-shirts pertaining to the situation in question:

Hurtin’ Inside - the victim is physically injured. Armed and Ready - the perpetrator is armed with weapons One and Only - they are the only victim in the situation

After the relevant items are selected, the user proceeds to checkout, where they provide their name and location - if known to them - for the police to use. The alternative option for users who are being held at an unknown location or those who are on the road is selecting the “Track Your Package” option that enables location sharing with the dispatcher. If the user wants to share any further information with the dispatcher at any point, they can navigate to the ChatBot tab. Through this feature, the dispatcher will be able to communicate directly with the user under the guise of a chatbot.

ShopHer has two main features that victims can use to justify their decision to buy from our app as opposed to other alternatives to their abuser; “Buy now, Pay later” and “One day delivery”. The “Buy now, Pay later” scheme explains why users are never prompted to enter payment information, whereas the “One day delivery” is a simple marketing tactic and differentiating factor. This solution also works great for those individuals who are deaf and/or mute as it gives them a way to contact authorities without needing to call 911.

How we built it

Our team has built the prototype for ShopHer using Figma and Canva to create the best quality visuals and user interface. By laying out each page of the application in Figma, we were able to ensure that when launched, ShopHer would run smoothly and look like a legitimate shopping app.

Challenges we ran into

We faced two main challenges. One was learning how to use Figma as we were inexperienced with the software. The other challenge we faced was ideation, specifically how to make our idea feasible and user-friendly so that it was easy to use but also discrete enough to protect the victims.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our biggest accomplishment in creating ShopHer is that our solution approaches a common problem that thousands of women face yearly in an innovative way. We put a lot of thought, time, and effort into designing each element so that it could be as discreet as possible, and still effectively provide the emergency help as we planned.

What we learned

Since this was a 36-hour hackathon where we had to ideate, build and present our solution from start to finish all while addressing the theme of “using technology to address global issues”, we learned how to manage our time appropriately. Additionally, we learned that it was important to play on each of our teammates' skills so that we could complete the solution in the allotted and of the best quality.

What's next for ShopHer

The next step for ShopHer is to work on the backend logistics of the application in order to have it running as a functioning app. In order to do this, we need to connect with local police departments in order to have a response team actively monitoring the requests and data coming in. Once that is done, we can launch the application in popular app stores and implement appropriate advertising strategies to get ShopHer to the people who need it.

Built With

• canva
• figma