Angel Shot

A lifeline and support when you are feeling unsafe or uncomfortable.

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Inspiration

As young women, we have been in a number of uncomfortable and possibly dangerous situations, such as getting catcalled or stalked. This is especially prevalent in downtowns and city centrals, places the 3 of us regularly visit. We have heard stories of many other people, not only women, feeling concerned about staying alone and not having a companion at all times. Moreover, it is tough figuring out how to get out of or deter this situation as you panic in the moment. In the real life, there are various social setups put in place in case you are in danger, but it runs the risk of whether or not these are well known. For example, when you go to a bar, and ask the bartender for an "angel shot" it covertly letting the bartender know that they don't feel safe because of another guest's behavior or with their date. Recently on TikTok, a bunch of individuals were recording fake conversation for which others can play and act like they are on an actual call to avoid or get away from unsafe or unpleasant situations.

What it does

There are times when we are stuck in dangerous or uncomfortable situations but do not know how to distract the potential "wrongdoer" or signify help in that difficult situation. Our product does this through two main features: simulating a realistic phone conversation one can interact with and an undercover application that triggers calls or texts directly to your emergency contacts and 911. This helps our user look occupied and in direct contact with someone/hotlines, which is likely to prevent the potential wrongdoer from doing anything harmful.

How we built it

This is a mobile app with a conversational simulator. As such, our frontend is in React Native and the backend consists of 2 APIs: Google Cloud and Chat GPT. Google Cloud is used for the speech-to-text aspect, which is collecting the user's vocal inputs in real-time and extracting insights on certain code signals which indicate danger. We use Chat GPT to mimic a realistic conversation using its conversation API. It has been trained to ask day-to-day simple questions that our users can comfortably answer and convincingly fake a conversation.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was successfully implementing Google Cloud for the speech-to-text aspect of the product. We faced issues in connecting this with the React Native stack because it is traditionally used in React/website products. This caused integration issues and audio file reading discrepancies.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This was our first time using OpenAI and successfully attaching that to this impactful idea. It was exciting playing with new technology that is so assistive!

What we learned and what was your favorite part

We were reminded of the power hackathons hold and learned that we should be lifelong learners and always seize opportunities. It was great meeting people and collaborating in person, especially after the pandemic.

What's next for Alert Simulator

This idea can be added to a startup the team members are currently building called Xircle. Our startup focuses mainly on the university landscape, and this product idea would be a great add-on for students to safely travel around and commute in comfort knowing that they can instantly get help without being obvious or feeling uncomfortable doing so in public.

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