GPS enabled mobility application 'Aman' for Saudi Arabia for women and child safety travelling by public transport

Case Synopsis

As users call for more mobile applications, enterprises must develop a mobile app strategy to meet the demand. But, it’s important to only include apps that truly bring value to the organization. Zivanta Analytics developed ‘Aman’ Mobile Android App which is primarily targeted at Women, Children and Disabled traveling alone in chauffeur driven cars. The App will enable sending of distress signal when car over-speeds or the occupant faces a situation which endangers personal safety. Zivanta partnered with the University of Ha’il in collaboration with the Ministry of Exterior, KSA to develop this mobile application especially targeted at Women, Children and Disabled. This mobile application is a one-time single-sign-on (SSO) only. As long as one does not uninstall the app, the app will remain signed in. If the sign-in detail needs to undergo a change, installing the app from the play store again is necessary. The process involved in the development of this app comprised of prioritizing what goes into the application portfolio, choosing a set of tools to be used for development and finally establishing governance and standards to maintain quality and consistency. Once this mobile app is made live maintaining it will also fall on the shoulders of Zivanta Analytics.

About the client

Zivanta partnered with the University of Ha’il in collaboration with the Ministry of Exterior, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to develop a mobile application targeted at Women, Children and Disabled. The University of Ha’il aims to become the first corporate university in the Middle East Region where technology and innovation are the two main elements used to sustain continuous development. The University of Ha’il is considered to be the University of the Future that moves at “the speed of change”. The university of Ha’il started as a community college, called Hail Community College (HCC), under the auspices of King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in September 1998. It was officially established in 2005 and has five colleges under its purview.

The Challenge

A good mobile app will depend on aggregation of information from various sources. The basic challenges faced by the ‘Aman’ mobile developers were developing an app across multiple platforms, lack of robust monitoring, analysis, and testing tools, and emulators that are slow or miss many features of mobile devices. The lack of an integrated development platform also does not allow for the development of the app on all the available devices. Another major challenge faced was testing the application across various devices, which depends on the success and failure of the app.

The Approach

The ‘Aman- Safety Mobile App’ will provide users with a
• A Speedometer to give an alert system to notify emergency contacts during over speeding.
• Tracker – A GPS-enabled tracking system ensuring a 2-way tracking. It is a Google Maps integrated screen, capturing user location every few microseconds, thus enabling users to track their location, search where their emergency contacts are, and the nearest contacts from the user’s location in real-time.
• Social Network: Since social media exists because of closely connected communities, this option tries to tap a user’s personal network directly via social media. On clicking this option, it will enable a user to invite friends active on social media. This way of inviting friends attempt to save time too, since even during an emergency situation if a person does not find any emergency contact nearby, but someone outside the app network who might be online on social media at that point in time and hence able to respond by joining the app network and tracking the person in need.
• Email: The email option is provided in the preferences to enable users of the app patronize and popularize the app so that more connections are able to join this app and use it from the invite email. The objective of this is not user acquisition, but more the number of personal connections of an app user join the network, the better chances are that in the case of an emergency or over speeding, alert functions can achieve the purpose.

Outcome

• The main objective behind designing this app was to promote the idea of Women Safety by better tracking facility.
• This particular app will be helpful not only for women but also for children and the disabled.