NASSCOM App Fame assures women's safety through mobile apps

BANGALORE, INDIA: In a way to create an ecosystem that ensures the safety and security of women employees, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) announced on Wednesday the winners of the All India App Fame Contest 2013.

The theme for this year - Collaborating Forces for Women Safety - aimed at creating solutions for women of industry, who constitute about 30 per cent of all in society. For this contest, NASSCOM invited application from interested Students, developers and corporates to design Apps around women safety.

The basic idea behind the apps was to help women in a distressed situation, and work as an emergency response tool, raise an alarm, crises communication or even repelling perpetrators.

The event also featured a panel discussion, titled Joining Forces for Women Security, to discuss the various aspects to ensure women safety in our country.

The panel comprised of Som Mittal, president, NASSCOM, Kiran Bedi, retired Indian Police Service Officer, Praveen Kumari Singh, director SR, Ministry of Home Affairs, Pramod Bhasin, non-executive vice chairman, Genpact, and Taj Hassan, special commissioner of police (Traffic), Delhi Police, stated a release.

On women employees' security, Mittal said, "Women constitute a significant workforce of the IT industry, which has set the benchmark for global practices around recruiting, retaining and retraining women. To ensure their safety and security, the industry, government and law enforcement agencies need to come together and partner to devise appropriate measures. I am extremely pleased with the innovation that we have seen in these apps that focus on women safety."

He added that it was a priority for the industry to provide a safe experience to women in the working environment.

Taking the thought further, NASSCOM had announced an AppFame contest early this year, in which corporates, developers and students were encouraged to build technology applications for women safety. Out of the several applications received, 10 best were filtered by a group of jury members.