The Finalist | SafeAtHome
The SafeAtHome platform allows people in need to be matched with kind-hearted hosts in order to feel safe again during the lockdown.
Project description:
The time when most of the people are ought to stay closed at home is at least troublesome for almost all of us. For some, it’s more of a game of survival than an unexpected holiday. Victims of domestic abuse, medical staff travelling tremendous distances to help the others, the cases are varied. Whoever feels that they’re not in the right place right now should have an alternative. We built a web application called “Safe at Home”, which will connect people in need with available facilities. Hotels, hostels and empty rent apartments, that would otherwise be flooded with tourists, are now almost completely abandoned and could make the difference between life and death for somebody. Individuals rarely seek help in such situations, since they don’t even know where to go, so we provide a simple and anonymous way of getting into contact with kind people that can offer a bed for a night or two. Let’s make it happen.
The platform functions in a similar fashion to Airbnb, but with a much more serious use-case. Potential hosts offer up their places for a duration of time, for example: Hotel owners have a surplus of empty rooms, some church organization has a few beds that are completely unoccupied, etc. The administrators of the platform review these offers and contact the owners, verifying their validity. Once these locations are approved, they are stored in the system until guests are automatically discovered.
The “guests”, as we call them, are people of any gender or social background that feel a lack of safety in their homes. By registering on the platform and describing their cases, which are then moderated by the administrators, they become part of a pool of applicants that are searching for temporary shelter away from the unsafe environments in which they currently find themselves. After approval, they go into a “ready to match” state.
The matching process involves automatic jobs running in the background. The most suitable location is searched in a “blind date” round, given the data that we have. Our system tries to match guests as best as possible to the offers that exist at a given time, preferring the closest locations and the best date overlap. As soon as a suitable guest – host match is found, they are put into contact and can discuss further details. When the guest and host are equally convinced of their compatibility, they approve the case, leading it to the final state where physical-world entities are involved, potentially even law-enforcement.
We believe that this platform could be a key ingredient in the fight against abuse, especially during these troubled times of tightly packed coexistence and isolation.
Team name: SafeAtHome
Project name: SafeAtHome
Team members: Marta Pacuszka, Karolina Cynk, Maja Jabłońska, Cristian Schuszter, Pavol Ulbrich
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