Safecity Monthly Updates: September 2019

Safecity is growing exponentially and we’re constantly working hard to translate our vision to reality. Because we don’t want you to miss out on our work, we’ve decided to put together a monthly column to tell you about what we’ve been up to. You can sign up for our newsletter here.

Youth Innovation Challenge 2019 – Social Incubator Session

We conducted a 2-day Social Incubator Session for the 10 finalist teams of the Youth Innovation Challenge 2019 at The Magic Bus Centre at Karjat, Maharashtra on September 21-22. Over the two days, the teams were taken through the Business Model Canvas, Team Building activities, developing strong Communications plans and learning from Nature so that they could develop robust innovations for Safe and Resilient Public Spaces.

The Youth Design Innovation Challenge, a social incubator, is a derivative of the Urban Thinkers Campus seeking to involve future leaders of the city – the youth of India, to play a part in solving gender equality issues due to rapid urbanization. The theme this year is Safe Public Spaces.

Youth Innovation Challenge 2019- Social Incubator Session

UN SDG Action Campaign

We joined the global #ACT4SDGs movement powered by UN SDG Action Campaign! We conducted multiple TweetChats with The Spatial Perspective in order to spread awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in order to honour the Global Goals Week. Our teams at the Youth Innovation Challenge also pledged to attain the SDGs by putting in individual efforts.

https://www.act4sdgs.org/partner/SAFECITY

The Human Rights and Digital Technologies Symposium, Washington DC

Our Founder, Elsa Dsilva, spoke at National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in DC at the Human Rights and Digital Technologies Symposium on 18th September 2019.

Character Day, 2019

Safecity celebrated Character Day, a global event, at Angel Xpress Foundation, Andheri East and at the Kasewadi Community in Pune on September 27. This year, Character Day focused on the relationship between character and technology. 

Safecity in the News 

Our Founder, Elsa Dsilva got featured on the Social App Hub and HerStory for the work she does to make our cities safer.

Safe Haven for All– https://www.socialapphub.com/interview/safe-haven-all

Her Story– These 5 entrepreneurs are taking the lead to ensure women’s safety in India 

Finding Tech Solutions to fight Sexual Violence with Omdena through an AI Challenge

Safecity partnered with Omdena to build a solution for creating more awareness to prevent violent acts, using satellite imagery to identify risk areas. It was an interesting learning experience for the 32 A1 engineers from 14 countries. Rudradeb Mitra, founder of Omdena said, “In the past 6 months, Omdena did a lot of interesting challenges but this one is my favourite. We built an AI model to provide a person reporting sexual harassment the safest route out, in real-time, based on past harassment incidences and nearby safe spots (Hospitals, Police stations, Metro stations etc). This solution will be implemented in the current app of Safecity India. I can imagine this work can help so many people.” Feel free to read the article.

You can read more about our experience on the challenge here.

Our Global newsletter

Do subscribe to our Red Dot Foundation Global international newsletter! We will be featuring our work across the globe in these newsletters.

Click here to read. Do subscribe if interested.

Updates from Patna

Naina Jha conducted a workshop on ‘Puberty and Sexual Harassment’ at Government Girls High School on September 9. It was attended by 24 girls. The aim was to initiate a dialogue about topics that are considered taboo.

Safecity Emerging Leaders

Safecity is celebrating the journey of people who have emerged as leaders as our campaigns progressed in their communities through our blog series “Safecity Emerging Leaders”. Read the inspiring stories of these individuals who are passionate about making their neighbourhoods safer with Safecity and have taken action in their own special ways.

Read this month’s Emerging Leader Tanushree Pillai’s story on our blog here.

When we asked about her experience doing an internship with Safecity, this is what Tanushree had to say –

“I thoroughly enjoyed creating visuals which are essential tools to promote the events and it is crucial that these posters effectively communicate the cause advocated by them as they are the first point of contact between the organisation and the audience. Simultaneously, I also gained insight into various relevant topics of social importance such as the rights of women at a police station. Safecity has instilled a sense of social consciousness and has helped inculcate professionalism in me. Working with Safecity has been a creatively gratifying and enriching experience so far.“

We have several opportunities for you to volunteer and take action. Do check our website.

Be Your Own Superhero

This campaign is to celebrate your story. It’s to celebrate the countless stories that collectively give us hope to #RiseTogether and fight against injustice. If you’re someone who has stood up for a friend who was being harassed, we would love to hear your heroic story too!

#BeYourOwnSuperhero today and share your story of action against harassment with us- bit.ly/BeYourOwnSuperhero

Giving Month

October is the giving month. Our award warning film Nirbhaya Mai, Asifa Mai is being showcased on the Mumbai Metro as part of #DaanUtsav

You can use this link to donate to support our work – https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/training-10-youth-campus-ambassadors-on-safety/