According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Software & Society, by this year, 2022, 10% of the people around the world will be wearing clothes connected to the internet. By 2025, it will reach up to 91% of the world’s population. Although, there are some privacy and data security concerns, the potential benefit of how this type of technology can serve humanity may outweigh such risks. One example is ‘Salvera’ — a smart bracelet that can help prevent human trafficking in the worst crime-hit cities in the world.
This smart device is proposed for the 2025 Smart City scenario for the Digital Creative City as a response to Guadalajara’s increasing crime rates and societal insecurity.
Salvera is a simple and easy-to-wear smart bracelet specially designed for women living or touring in Guadalajara, where traveling alone can be intimidating due to the risk of being taken by human trafficking predators.
With the touch of a bead on this smart bracelet, the user can be located and tracked by the local law enforcement within seconds, which then, can lead to a life-saving rescue.
The Salvera bracelets have been designed with culture and sustainability in mind. The design has been inspired by the traditional beaded bracelets of Mexico, which are commonly worn by both locals and tourists in the area. There are three different color beads: red, green, and white, which have been inspired by the Mexican flag. This design will allow the bracelet to blend in as a part of the tradition, without much suspicion by the predators.
Each of the colored beads are touch-sensitive with the owner’s fingerprints and when pressed for 5 seconds or more, they have separate functions that help the woman at risk:
Red — (SOS) immediately contacts the closest police station with an automated message asking for help and shares the real-time location and basic information that used when the owner set it up, which will help identify the person at risk.
Green — alerts a call center that supports women traveling alone to call the bracelet owner, pretending they are a family member or a friend waiting for them at their destination to minimize the risk of being taken.
White — defuses accidental pressing of one of the other color beads or once help has arrived.
As a part of this smart intervention, a division in the local police that exclusively handles Salvera alerts and women at risk for going missing will need to be set up in the city to work closely with the device.
Both the manufacturing of the smart beads and the handcrafting of the bracelet will take place in the city to support local businesses and local craftsmen. It is also the most sustainable solution for production.
Our team’s vision is that ‘Salvera’ makes a significant impact in allowing women in Guadalajara to travel safely within the city, particularly ages 18 to 23, and reduce the incidence of missing persons.
Salvera will also bring additional value to a smart city with the following benefits:
· fostering trust in the local authorities and community
· spreading awareness of the increasing problem of missing people, particularly women, to encourage more government and community level interventions to fight against
· creating a support system for women in Guadalajara
· creating community with the city
· encourage collaboration and cooperation between city residents, community centers and law enforcement.
Our product is linked to the following five of the 21 Technology Tipping Points:
1. Wearable internet — a smart bracelet wearable aroudnthe wrist, connected to the internet for a decreased in missing persons, more self-sufficiency, real-time identification, change in personal interactions and relationships, availability of personal data.
2. Smart Cities — Salvera connects residents to community centers and local police authorities for an improved quality of life, increased access to resources, decreased crime, increased mobility and promotes a smarter e-government.
3. Internet of and for Things — digitally connectable smart sensors on the physical beads that can provide real-time data via the internet to alert the police or support centers for safety, improved quality of life, data for monitoring, controlling and predicting, and efficiency.
4. Big Data for Decisions — information collected from Salvera’s use can create data about risky areas, potential victims, profiling predators and allow for reduced complexity and more efficiency for residents traveling in the city or making decisions about their mode or manner of travels, overall bringing relief and development in the area for women.
5. Our Digital Presence — the bracelet acts as a digital ID that increases transparency and faster interconnection between individuals and groups or the community. There is also a faster information exchange and more efficient use of government services
Tools selected from IDEO’s design kit for the Inspiration stage:
· Align of your impact goals — so that we can find clarity on the ultimate change we want to achieve through brainstorming as a team.
· Frame your design — so that we can be solution-oriented as we consider the context and constraints, and have the same vision of success in mind as a team.
· Recruiting Tools & Interview- so that we can identify our target users of the smart bracelet through group interviews and determine the factors necessary to improve the user experience.
· Draw it — as we will be interviewing women who speak Spanish, this will be a great tool to help with the language barrier.
Tools selected from IDEO’s design kit for the Ideation stage:
· Journey map — to visualize the user’s experience with the bracelet from start to end in different risk situations.
· Gut check — to take time reflecting on how our smart device will help the target users and which functions are necessary and which ones aren’t in bringing a solid solution for them.
· Build and Run Prototypes & Co-creation Sessions — it will be important to ask the women we interviewed to show us what they would want and brainstorm, role play, and prototype together
· Get Feedback- getting feedback from the real users will be crucial in building our product and ensuring that it actually achieves what it is made to do.
Tools selected from IDEO’s design kit for the Implementation stage:
· Define your indicators — determining the key performance indicator is necessary in order to check that it is working for its purposes. For Salvera, the number of red or green bead touched compared to the resolution of these SOS cases will show us the success rate.
· Live prototyping — to pilot test our bracelet with the ‘person-at-risk’, the call center and the police station to make sure things run smoothly.
· Build Partnerships — with the community centers/workers and the city’s law enforcement. We will need to find volunteers or workers who can be a part of the project and build this community.
· Roadmap for Success — to create a plan for how we’re going to implement Salvera into the smart city of Guadalajara with key dates and milestones for getting approval by the city, confirmed partnerships, recruiting manufacturers etc.
· Explore Scalability — to consider how Salvera can be scaled to other cities in Mexico and potentially not cities around the world if there is great success in reducing the problem of missing persons in Guadalajara.
Reflection
Through this case study, I got to experience the process of designing a project that has a large-scale impact such as bringing a positive change to a whole city. I learned that Smart technology isn’t always about bringing convenience to people’s lives, but actually have the power to save them when used appropriately. I also learned that design thinking and the process of building a device really takes patience, repetition and reiteration in order to be refined into a useful product. The more time and the more people involved into making a product, the better the turnout as diversity is power when it comes to inspiration, ideation and implementation. I really enjoyed looking through all the different methods in the Design Kit for the various stages of creation and immediately knew that I could use these methods of anything that I may create in the future whether it is a physical or a digital product or a project. I look forward to using the Design Kit as a tool for teaching as well as introducing it to my students so that they can also explore the beauty and the fun of designing and creating.
References
IDEO (n. d.) Design kit. https://www.designkit.org/
World Economic Forum (2015). Deep Shift Technology Tipping Points and Societal Impact. Global Agenda Council on the Future of Software & Society. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GAC15_Technological_Tipping_Points_report_2015.pdf