Where You At

Overview

Where You At solves the problem of people losing friends inside busy venues, helping to alleviate the anxiety and stress that is currently endemic to nightlife. Combining social and safety functionalities, Where You At allows users to see their friends’ precise indoor positions mapped out on a  floor map and message them offline without signal. The solution for safety in venues has four key components, delineated in full here:.

1. Micro-location and indoor location: Upon reaching the venue, users can see a floor plan of the venue and their friends’ locations in real time. This was designed to ensure that locations are very precise in comparison to generic friend-finding apps which only work outdoors. This means you can know whether friends are on a different floor, by the bar, on the dance floor or even heading home.
2. Offline capabilities: The app can work offline using Bluetooth mesh networks. This aspect was created to ensure that even when there is no signal in the venue users can use all the core functionalities of the app.
3. PING: If a user feels unsafe they press an SOS button. This sends an alert to their circle (through an alert sound/vibration of their choosing) and highlights their  location for others to find.

Time and place-stamped SOS data can be used to  report incidents with information the next day, encouraging venues to improve safety in places where SOS reports are repeatedly being called.

The Challenge

We are trying to solve the social problem of people, and particularly young women, feeling vulnerable and unsafe at events. The recent focus on female vulnerability has resulted in demands for better safety solutions, with 51% of 18-24 year old UK females experienced sexual harassment on most or every ‘night-out’ (Drinkaware, 2015) and in our survey of over 1,100 students from Oxford and Cambridge, over 90% of students felt vulnerable at events as a result of losing their friends. Venues are often crowded and underground, and are unfortunately hotspots for predatory activity in addition to general feelings of anxiety: over 85% of students spend more of their time searching for a friend and avoiding a risky situation, than having fun.

The Soultion

Where You At is an app which lets you map and contact friends in venues without mobile signal. The solution has three key benefits which help to make nightlife safer and act as a deterrant for predators: bluetooth chat; indoor mapping and SOS.

The app is unique; generic mapping apps allow people to share their location, but this only works when you are outdoors and have signal. Our app uses indoor positioning and bluetooth BLE beacons within venues to generate real time locations of friends wherever you are. This enables users to locate their friends when they need them most – and also will enable them a more accurate timestamped and location-stamped record for recording and reporting incidents.

There are untold benefits for a real-world impact that can spin off from the app as operators of clubs, venues, large sporting events and festivals will be able to monitor crowd movements through heat spots and identify build-up of crowds in dangerous situations and be able to proactively manage and avoid incidents and even send messages via the phone to guide people away from problem areas.

Publications and Patents

Patent pending

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